


The Curious Case

by LizardWhisperer



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alpha monster, Blood Ritual, Cas can fly- he just can, Case Fic, Castiel Whump, Castiel's Grace, Dead hunters, Dead others, Dean Hates Witches, Dean Needs A Hug, Dean Needs Castiel, Destiel (no smut), Dreamwalking, Fluff and Angst, Immortality, M/M, Men of Letters Bunker, Parental Castiel, Sam Is So Done, Sammy Needs a Hug, Someone gets spanked, The Colt - Freeform, chicken, houseplant, spells, there's some de-aging
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2018-02-08
Packaged: 2019-02-20 12:03:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 49
Words: 42,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13146315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LizardWhisperer/pseuds/LizardWhisperer
Summary: When is an angel not an angel?  When he's a 700 year old queen.  When are hunters not allowed to hunt?  When they have a nine o'clock bedtime...





	1. He Should Have

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, this is LizardWhisperer's second novel-length fic. As the title suggests, it's a case--and what a case--with a twisting plot spanning over seven hundred years, an impostor, a pair of brats, and more than one of those wicked witches.  
> Enjoy.  
> (LW has never been to Kansas, Arkansas, or Nebraska. All towns and areas mentioned were chosen purely for geographical purposes and, of course, the people are fictional.)  
> Kudos are ice cream, but comments are fudge, whippy cream, and jimmies on top--thank you!

It was long past midnight, but the tan-coated figure stood almost at attention, alert in the late hour.  The figure barely took notice of the biting November breeze, the tall frame silhouetted against its billowing coat in the dim street light, dark hair rising in waving peeks.  The stubble on his broad jawline gave the fellow the appearance of needing his face scrubbed—in contrast to his blue eyes, sharp as cut diamonds.

Watching as the lights turned off one by one in the mostly underground building, the figure remained quiet and unmoving, waiting for the bunker’s occupants to settle in for the night.  He knew one would fall asleep faster than the other, but neither would even approach the vulnerability of sleep without a weapon in reach.  He should have been reassured by this fact.  The reason the older brother fell asleep after the younger should have mattered to him—he should have been inside the bunker with them.

As the night wore on and the windows remained dark, the trench coat made its way down the ramp to the garage door, where it’s wearer deftly produced burglar picks and set to work relieving the roll-up door of its security.  A few clicks and a final pop and the door released, but remained stayed by the hand in the trench sleeve.  The dark head listened intently for over a minute, then the sharpie in the coat’s other hand drew a jagged line, along the door’s bottom seal, striking out the edges of the sigils etched there.  A few flashed yellow and red as they were nullified.  Confident the warding was gone, the figure rose to its full height, slowly opening the door.  He stepped in underneath, carefully lowering its creaking weight behind him.  It was pitch black inside the garage, but his blue eyes had no trouble adjusting.  Heading toward the heart of the bunker and its two sleeping occupants, the fellow moved quietly, yet comfortably—he knew his way around.

Pausing at a slightly open door, its head slid inside and watched the long frame breathe evenly a few moments, then retreated, closing the door gently.  Sam Winchester stirred in his bed, raising his head to listen with more alertness than he seemed to possess.  “Cas?”  The door reopened a bit and a familiar face appeared.  “My apologies, Sam.  I didn’t mean to wake you.”

The hunter adjusted his long legs and let out a yawn, “Go see, Dean, will ya?  He’s been a bitch all night…he’s bent you never called him back.”

“I will do that, Sam.  Goodnight.”

He proceeded down the hall to the older hunter’s room, purposefully rustling his coat and making a show of tapping his knuckles on the door, as it opened.  Dean’s usual at-attention gun-wielding wake-up ensued, followed immediately by relief—then annoyance.  “Where the Hell have you been?”

Stepping into the room and closing the door behind him, the figure lowered his dark chin and dropped its shoulders.  “It’s a long story, Dean.  Some associates requested my help, then I was detained in an area where I had no cell service.  I’m sorry.”

“ _Detained_?”

The blue eyes continued to focus on polished dress shoes, “I could have gone, but doing so would have left unfinished business.”

Stowing his gun, Dean flicked on a lamp and rubbed at his sticky eyes, “Well, you’re ok, right?  It’s all done now—this business?” As he stepped closer to Dean, the blue eyes finally rose to meet bleary green ones.  “Yes, Dean—it is done.  And I’m ok.  Again, I am sorry.”  With a huffed “Fine” Dean swung his legs out of bed and headed toward his late-night visitor.  Tan shoulders squared, unsure of the grumpy hunter’s intent, but Dean just patted a tense arm, as he brushed past him and headed for the bathroom.

“Just call, text, _something_ next time.”

Back in his bed, sunk into his memory foam, Dean hugged his angel close to his chest.  It had been some time since the hunter had fallen asleep without the weight of familiar warmth—and even longer since Cas had climbed into his bed wearing more than his boxers.  Still annoyed at his earlier disappearing act, the hunter pawed impatiently at Cas’ dress shirt buttons, eager to feel his angel’s skin against his.  Once Cas had relented and stripped down to his skivvies, Dean finally settled in for the evening, securely wrapped around his angel.  The hunter drifted off quickly.  Dean Winchester snored softly, as he slept only as he could sleep under the watchful eye of his angel. 

Cas snored, too.

 

The figure in bed with Dean Winchester was not his angel.


	2. Utterly Indifferent

“Ya know, Sammy, it’s not really bacon unless it comes from a pig,” Dean regarded his breakfast, like Mikey looking at that bowl of Life.  
“It’s better for you when it’s made from turkey, Dean. Just try it—if you don’t like it, I won’t get any more.”  
Sam returned his attention to his laptop and the news story that had caught his eye, while his brother nibbled at the corner of the strip of meat, one eye closed.  
“Check it out—a missing person in Huntsville, Arkansas and three more from surrounding towns.”  
“So?” Dean tossed the ‘fakon’ onto his plate in disgust and tucked into his egg whites.  
“So, get this—they’re all hunters.” Sam spun the computer to show Dean a picture with a caption underneath. “Is that Tommy? Tom Watley, yeah, that’s him. We flushed that vamp nest in New Mexico with him.” Sam nodded.  
“You’re killin’ me, here, Sam.” Dean pushed his half-finished plate aside, as Cas entered, tying his tie. “Hello, Dean. Good morning, Sam—did you find a case?”  
“Did you find a comb?” Dean chuckled, “You’re lookin’ a little rough there, angel.” Dean rose, finished Cas’ Windsor, and ran his hand through the messy locks.  
Sam made a show of covering his ears, “I don’t need to hear about this,” he teased, “I’m working here.”  
“I tell you to fix your damn hair all the time, Sam, you don’t start calling for an adult,” then to Cas, “Sam says hunters are going missing. Again,” Dean didn’t sound impressed.  
“I have to agree with Dean, Sam—hunters go missing often, do they not?”  
“They do, Cas, but not all from the same area. It’s worth looking into, I’m gonna make some calls.”  
Cas gathered the brothers’ dishes, as Dean eyed him, thoughtfully, “Making up for your no-show last night, Cas? I mean, since when are you miss Suzie Homemaker?”  
“Just trying to be useful, Dean,” retorted the angel over his shoulder, carrying the plates to the kitchen. Once there, the figure that looked, sounded—and to Dean Winchester—felt like Castiel the angel, crammed Dean’s leftovers down its throat. It looked around warily, as it turned on the faucet, muffling its frantic chewing and even sneaking a sip of too-hot coffee, right from the pot. It clattered the dishes in the sink, covering its choking and sputtering. Taking a few deep breaths, the thing that was not Cas wiped its face and hands, set its five o’clock shadow, and walked back into the map room—where the Winchester brothers were nose-to-nose arguing.  
“But how do you know they weren’t all hunting the same thing, Dean?”  
“Because we don’t play well with others—and neither do other hunters—not for long, anyways. They tend to break their toys. We’ve broken a whole toy box.”  
“And some have tried to break us too, I get that, Dean, I do—but something smells fishy, here. Mostly because it doesn’t.”  
Clearing his throat, Cas interrupted, “Sam, I’m not sure that a sole lack of evidence of foul play can logically lead us to believe there’s been some. Dean’s right, hunters lead mostly solitary lives and working together almost always leaves chaos in their wake.”  
“You too, Cas?” Sam shook his hair out of his face and gave his team a look of resolve. “What harm can it do to go check into it? If they’re unrelated, we can at least finish off whatever got them first.  
Dean plunked himself into a chair, swinging his boots onto the map table. He swallowed his last mouthful of coffee, motioned with two fingers, and asked, “Could you give us a lift, Cas?”  
The man in the trench coat blinked twice, then tilted his head to the side, before answering, “If Sam’s theory is right, then we could be encountering something new—don’t you think it wise to have the contents of the Impala at your disposal?”  
“Fine, fine…road trip it is,” Dean leaned forward in his seat, aiming a finger at his brother, like a gun, “But it’s your turn in back.”  
Saving the page and closing his laptop, Sam uttered a long-suffering sigh and mumbled, “Better than watching you two make goo-goo eyes in the rearview.”

The trio were halfway to Arkansas when the thing that looked like Castiel the angel, asked Dean to pull over. “What’s up, Cas? Gotta pop a squat?” Dean teased, barely hiding his irritation. While the angel usually tried to understand the hunter’s human need to stop and refresh, Cas was almost always impatient on long trips, eager to get to a place he knew he could reach with a thought, on his own. At first, the Cas thing didn’t answer Dean, but just stepped out of the car and looked around. “Cas?” Dean pressed him, leaning toward his open window. Touching his temple, Dean’s angel reassured him, “It’s just, um, angel radio—I don’t think it’s important, but I’ll need some quiet…” Cas’ voice trailed off, as he strolled into the tall roadside grass, with purpose.  
Dean spun in his seat and frowned at his brother, who gave him one right back, along with a shrug. “Shouldn’t we go check that out, Sam?” Lowering his phone, Sam peered through the widow, just able to make out tan shoulders and dark hair above the high grass. “He did say it was nothing, right?”  
“Right. Then, Sammy—why’s he listening? I thought angel radio played twenty-four/seven and he blocked most of it out?”  
“Stop obsessing, Dean. Cas will let us know if— “  
But the hunter was already exiting the driver’s side door and making his way around the Impala’s long hood. Sam shook his head, “Marriage,” and returned to his phone.  
The thing that was not Cas heard the car’s old creaky door and quickly zipped its pants back up, stepping away from the warm puddle it had left in the grass. It righted its clothes quickly then again touched its temples, pretending to listen intently. “What’s the word, Radar?” A distance from his brother’s delicate constitution, Dean slipped an arm inside the trench coat and around Cas’ solid waist.  
“It’s—it’s about the angels.”  
“News flash,” said Dean.  
Cas scrunched his nose, outwardly trying to concentrate through Dean’s antics, but inwardly, the thing was frantically concocting a heavenly story that would not require Winchester intervention. It had held its bladder as long as it could, on the lengthy trip, and finally requested the stop, when Sam had slurped the bottom of his smoothie cup loudly, for the third time. It knew it would need a good story, an easier task than trying to explain the wet stain on his coat. Dean’s hand roamed inside that coat now, wandering south to cup the seat of his angel’s dress pants—and cop a pinch. “It’s a census!” Blurted the mouth that had never spoken Enochian—and had no idea if there was even an Enochian word for census. “The angels have devised a census to determine our remaining numbers.”  
Dean’s groping hand retreated, scratching his chin. “That’s it, Cas? We lost time for that?”  
The Cas thing stood stymied—one hand on its backside, subtly reclaiming the area while trying to think. Finally, Dean was swept aside by a tan blur, as Cas headed off through the whistling dry grass, announcing abruptly, “My name came up a lot. There was debate. Some disbelieve I live.”  
The following miles were spent in silence, Dean enjoying Cas’ company up front, while Sam dozed in the back, twisted up in a tolerable pose. Dean chanced a hand on his angel’s knee and was pleasantly surprised when said angel laced his own fingers with his. While Cas had a rich and complicated history with The Winchesters, his relationship with Dean had developed more fully, from the start. Their bond, while nearly severed a few times, had nonetheless grown stronger throughout that history and while Dean expressed a distaste for the term ‘boyfriend,’ a casual observer would be hard-pressed to describe what they were to each other any other way.  
Sam knew the difference. He knew his friend and his brother loved each other dearly—fiercely, even—and that the gender of Cas’ vessel was despite that. Dean loved Castiel, Angel of the Lord, and while he had undoubtedly grown attracted to the bottle, it was the Genie inside that mattered most to the hunter. The subject only came up once, in the beginning. Dean struggled, painfully inept at expressing his attraction to Cas, when the hunter was rescued from the brink of chronic stammering by the angel’s plain assertion, “I am utterly indifferent to sexual preferences.”  
Had Dean been a balloon, the liberation of air from his lungs would have sent him zig-zagging along the ceiling. And that was that. Dean loved Cas. Cas loved Dean. The fact that they sported the same equipment was treated as incidentally as the fact both were chronically in need of a new razor.  
After years of sexual tension between the hunter and the angel, every day was a new adventure--common things like hand-holding could make Dean Winchester feel twitterpated. With his brother unconscious in the rear seat, the Impala swallowed the miles to Arkansas, while the hunter behind the wheel held hands with an angel.

Except the hand clasped tightly around Dean Winchester’s, did not belong to his angel.


	3. Immortality

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is embarrassing, but I've been writing this story for some time--and actually got the chapters numbered wrong! So, here is the REAL chapter three, complete with my most humble apologies and an ill-fated promise to not screw up this badly again. Anyone who hadn't yet read this far, please disregard this notice--to those who have, here's some post foreshadowing for ya--I know, a tad anticlimactic. Damn, oh well.

It was late in the thirteenth century and in the Southwesterly region of Turkey, ruling your own little Anatolian beylik was all the rage. Queen Irini Boran ruled one such nook beside her husband, in relative peace and security. However, the couple’s only son had taken up monster slaying, while other noblemen had taken to saving maidens from dragons. It was a time of monsters and witches, spells and sorcery and the prince battled it all—for all. Much to his parents’ chagrin, the noble lad saw fit to vanquish the monsters that plagued both the rich and the poor. These were dangerous endeavors, as hunting has continued to be across the ages, but the monsters of the age of the Boran rule were mainly Alphas—pure and powerful. Protecting the castle from these beasts was all well and good, but let the peasants fight their own battles. Besides, what creature would fight the battlements when it could easily feast on serf?   
And so Queen Irini found herself faced with a dilemma, upon the early death of her husband, from fever—to allow her heroic yet foolish son to rule or to somehow keep the throne for herself. Her son would give away the kingdom and end in an earlier grave than his father. She chose and sent a servant into the forest with a purse of gold to seek the one who would know a way.  
Theodora was a natural witch—an Alpha, born of Eve, begat of Purgatory. She and her coven were also hunted relentlessly by the prince. She stood now in her robes, before her hunter’s mother, having been invited into their sanctuary. The Alpha’s presence was almost electric, the air around her thrumming with power.   
“I seek the thro—”  
“You seek immortality, Your Highness,” the witch interrupted, undeterred by the queen’s incensed glare. She dared continue, “What you seek is to remain on your throne—forever, if possible. Am I wrong?”  
The woman ducked her head, in its hood, “Your Grace?”  
Irini rose to her feet and looked down at the preternatural creature before her. Insolent, assuming, filthy—these words came to mind but what came from her lips was “You can do this? Make me immortal?”  
Inside the hood, a stained grin formed wide, “Yes, I can—for a price.” The witch bowed deeply, adding “Your Highness,” with all the sincerity she could muster.


	4. Weird

The figure that looked like Castiel was having a hard day.  It had always assimilated another’s identity fairly easily, absorbing its subject’s memories and the rest was just method acting.  But this angel was a whole new animal—its basic memory downloaded quickly, but then its feelings—its beliefs—got kinda stuck in limbo.  It’s as if the thing in Cas’ skin knew what Cas knew, but didn’t always know why.  File incomplete.  And what was this language?  Much to its delight, the angel face came complete with an understanding of every tongue on Earth—but there was one in its head that wasn’t from Earth at all—and the Cas thing couldn’t understand it.  Damn.  What more, there was a constant babble of it in its head, chattering away like a radio stuck between channels.  Radio—that was it.  It was radio—but what to do with it?  Didn’t they ever just play music?  The thing calmed itself, closed its eyes, and squeezed the hunter’s hand, trying to find a solution in the angel’s memory.  It wasn’t used to this kind of work—it was royalty.

“We’ll be in Arkansas in 20 more miles.”

It opened Cas’ blue eyes, with a start, worried it might have dozed off.  Cas looked at Dean with a crooked smile.  “’Bout time.”

“Hey, I’m not the one had to go all Field of Dreams to tune in to WKRP.”

The thing just nodded and looked out the window.  Dean’s eyes stayed on Cas and off the road just too long enough to drift toward the center line.  He was brought to attention by the horn of an on-coming truck, jerking the Impala back in its lane and effectively giving Sam a rude awakening.  Tall limbs stretched up against the ceiling, “What the Hell, Dean!” Sam’s lanky frame creaked as he sat up, clearly annoyed. “You weren’t necking and driving, were ya?” Sam yawned, scrubbing a hand over his hair.

The Cas-looking thing said nothing—it was basking in the absence of noise.  The radio had stopped.

“Morning, Sunshine.  Clean up your toys, Sammy, we’re almost there.”

Sam gritted his teeth and shot a deadly look at the back Dean’s head, but glanced around, nonetheless, gathering a few napkins and his smoothie cup.  Ever since they were kids, the Impala was like hallowed ground, kept sacredly immaculate.  Their father had made his sons wash their car by hand, showing them how to keep the huge sponge soapy enough not to scratch her shine.  Every road trip—and there were a lot of them—they were made to clean out their trash and wipe up their spills.  “We practically live in this car,” Dad had said, tired of hearing the boys grumble about the cleanup, “and we’re gonna keep her like a home.  End of story.”  When John Winchester said “end of story” there was no more arguing to be made.  The end.

So adult Sammy still stuffed his trash in a crumbled paper bag before asking if they were stopping to eat before work.  A loud gurgle sounded through the car.  Dean laughed, “Geez, Sam, you don’t have to keep asking.”

“Look who’s talking—that wasn’t me.”

Dean glanced back over his shoulder to launch an accusation back at Sam, but was interrupted when Cas turned on the radio, cranking up Tom Petty’s Free Falling.  Dean stared at the figure riding shotgun, tapping its fingers on its knee to the music, its lips moving slightly. 

“Thanks, Cas—we don’t need to hear any more of Dean’s stomach in C minor.”

Dean shook his head, taking in the town they’d pulled into, then smirked and sniggered, keeping his planned remark, “what a child” to himself.

“Maybe I’ll wait out here,” Cas told Dean, as the trio approached a diner.  Dean stopped and turned to face his angel, standing close enough to brush the tan coat with his fingers. “Why, Cas?” 

The figure placed a hand on Dean’s shoulder, “You enjoy your meal.  I think I’ll check out the town.  I think we passed a bar a few block over, I can ask if any hunters frequent there.”

Dean looked over Cas’ raised shoulder, at the surrounding square, “We did?  Hey, Sam, let’s get a few beers and some pub food, check out Cas’ lead.”

“Ok, sounds good. Lead the way, Cas—I’m starving.”

The thing that was not Cas saw no option but to relent.  The brothers headed toward their car but the trench coat walked away, calling over its shoulder, “I’ll walk.  I want to see the town.”

The Winchesters got into the Impala and closed her doors in synch.  They looked at each other, still eerily mirroring the other, as both said, “Well, that was weird.”

“He’s been weird since last night, Sam.”

“How do you mean?  Dean—if you talk about se—”

“No, I’m serious.  Something’s up, like he’s nervous—like he’s hiding something from us— _from me_.”

Sam lowered his hands from his ears and considered his brother a moment.  “After everything you two have been through—all the well-intentioned lies, the bad decisions, the plans gone wrong—after all _the hurt_ you’ve caused each other and managed to come out the other side— _together_ —Dean, you’re gonna start mistrusting him _now_?”

Dean stared right back at Sam, then pointed an accusing finger in his face. “First off, yeah, me and Cas got history—messy history—and how that makes me feel and act is my business and his—ya got that?  And second,” Dean’s jabbing finger relaxed into an upturned palm, “You gotta admit, _that_ was weird, Sam.”

The tension melted as the brothers faced front and let out matching sighs.  “Yeah,” said Sam, turning toward the window, “I was over the line.  And that was weird.  Drive slow, let’s see where he goes.”

Turns out, Cas hadn’t gone far at all, as the Impala cruised up behind him still walking along a nearby sidewalk, just past a Burger King.  The angel had his hands in his coat pockets, as he strolled across the street, glancing both ways and jogging against the traffic.  Dean parked the Impala at the curb, “Weird, Sammy.  He’s weird.”

As the engine cut, Sam shrugged, “Hasn’t he always been a little weird, Dean?”

As the thing that wasn’t Cas entered the bar, it swiped the back of its hand across its mouth before turning to meet the Winchesters, who entered behind him.  “Nice walk?” asked Dean.

“Lovely,” answered not Cas.

Dean smiled tightly and gave him a tiny nod, gesturing them toward the bar.  The brothers took seats either side of their companion, Dean mouthing exaggeratedly behind his back, “Weird.”

 

 


	5. It Tries not to Kill

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is what happened next--REALLY.

As the Winchesters ate and drank, their friend nursed his beer, for show. Eventually, Dean Wiped his hands and discarded his napkin on his empty plate, waving the bartender over. He produced an FBI badge, then a printout of the article about missing Tom Watley. “He come in here, much?” The broad man behind the bar wiped some glasses, absently telling his dishcloth, “Of course. I already talked to the cops—twice—what more you want from me?”  
Dean was used to this act. This man knew what Tommy was and hadn’t told the police everything—who would believe him? “I want you to tell me what Tommy was hunting.”  
The dishcloth stopped, mid-swivel. “What did you say your name was, Agent?”

“I didn’t. But it’s Winchester.”

The man’s jowls shook as he looked back and forth between Dean and Sam—the figure in the middle leaning back a bit. “Well I’ll be—listen,” his voice lowered, the man drew closer, “Tom was between hunts, taking a break from the pressure, ya know? But he came in same day he went missing—said his wife wasn’t acting right. Showed me a video he took on his phone of landscaping he’d had done—kept pausing it and saying she was in the window, watching. All I could make out were two light spots, like reflections, but he enlarged it and swore it was her. Anyways, that’s the last I saw of him.”  
Sam turned to Dean, “Skinwalker?”

“Sounds like it. Anyone talk to his wife, besides the police?”

“That’s the thing—she disappeared right after he did.”

“Moved on,” confirmed Sam, reaching in his jacket for his iPad. He showed him the other hunters that had gone missing, but the man had only known Tom. Paying way too much for the burgers, the hunter advised, “Forget you met us.”

As the three exited the bar, Dean announced “Well, we know what we’re hunting, we just don’t know why its hunting hunters.”

“Could be revenge. We found out skinwalkers can have families—remember that Alpha that was making babies?”

“Hmm. Or maybe it’s clearing an area to play house, Sam—claiming a new territory, hunter-free for its safety.”

“Or perhaps the killings are random? Perhaps, there are a number of disturbed perpetrators, driven by some other dark motive?”

Dean paused at his car door, leaning against the metal to consider the angel on the opposite side. “Killings, Cas? Who said anything about killings?”  
Sam paused mid-door swing, curious. “What makes you think the hunters are dead, Cas?”

“What makes either of you think they’re alive? It stands to reason that out of the numbers of hunters gone, if taken and held somewhere, at least one would manage to escape,” Cas paused, looking from one man to the other, “Wouldn’t one of you?”

“We’d sure as Hell try.”

“You would—I knew it,” Cas’ fingers snapped in Dean’s direction, to emphasize his point, in precisely the way the angel had never done before. As the tan coat disappeared into the car, Dean heard it say, “I think you’ve been misled by a reflection—if a skinwalker wants to stay unnoticed, it tries not to kill.”

With Sam and Cas both inside the car, Dean paused another moment—reviewing what Cas had said—and thinking it was presumptuous—but not untrue. And weird.  
Dean got in and adjusted his rear view until he could see Sam clearly, who returned his confused gaze. Sam agreed.

Pointing the Impala North, toward Eureka Springs, Dean’s mind combed over his recent interactions with his Cas—true, there was something off about his angel—but was his brother right? Was he too quick to believe Cas could—or even would deceive him again? Was he too obsessed with his partner’s actions? Was he codependent? Jesus H. Meyer, was Dean a teenage girl?

Sam searched his phone for any new information on the case. No new missing persons reported in the area. He also looked up Alpha skinwalkers and their patterns—most of the lore being speculation and ancient history. It was rare for a modern hunter to encounter an Alpha and live to add to the lore. Armed with the almighty Colt, The Winchesters had taken out more Alphas than any others, the last entirely by luck—and only a few short months ago. During a coven hunt in Nebraska, Dean found himself on the wrong end of a hex bag, buried deep in his body. Desperate to save his brother, Sam warded the witches inside their coven, then set it ablaze, promising to spare the witch that lifted the hex. As soon as the creature that came forth from the flames released Dean’s agony, she hurled another witch across the wards and trampled her melting body. Before she could utter a curse, Dean flung an iron witchcatcher over her jaw and shoved her into the open, where Sam buried a Colt bullet deep in her brain. Others escaped the coven that night—one clutching a book—but The Winchesters still reveled in their first kill of an Alpha witch.

Not Cas thought about its easier, more opulent days. It once had handmaidens to wash its body, dress it, and prepare its meals. The Burger King it crammed down its throat today, before the Winchesters could catch on, was a far cry from the royal feasts of its past. Not that it had needed the food back then, but then again, just because one was immortal, didn’t mean one lost its taste buds. Keeping these bennies was certainly not a burden, but keeping the throne—for that, the thing now wearing Cas’ skin and clothes had made the ultimate sacrifice.  A mother’s sacrifice.  Or rather, she witnessed it. Promising the Witch of the Wood protection from her son, Queen Irini had inadvertently given the Alpha permission to remove his threat. Theodora’s spell needed blood—all the blood—from an experienced hunter, the more powerful his kills, the more powerful the magic. The witch’s book held the power to find such a hunter. But the spell was half-cast and the transfer of magic was well on its way, when the prince himself was brought bound before his mother, prepared for sacrifice. Irini was distraught, though she felt herself surge with the spell’s power. Theodora declared that part of her son would be granted to the queen forever but for that, the ritual must be completed.

And so she used the power she gained from his sacrifice to become him, as well as many more rulers over the ages. Irini kept her witch close, protected, employing her magic from time to time. Eventually, they travelled to the New World, where Irini continued to become whichever rich and powerful person suited her and Theodora founded The Grand Coven of the Americas. Life was good.  
That is, until The Winchesters killed her witch and broke her spell of immortality.  
At least she had the book and the original spell—though its ancient magic didn’t last without the power of a natural witch.

She needed the blood of hunters of the supernatural frequently, for without true magic, the spell waned and she had to contend with fleshly concerns—and eventual aging. What more, these modern hunters killed every day monsters and Irini was often glad to be rid of their recent kill’s powers quickly. Who had time to thirst for blood these days? Irini pondered if it was the Alpha’s promise that retained her original skinwalker powers, all the while she was losing her everlasting life—no matter, as shapeshifting made it simpler to lure hunters to their deaths without a struggle.  
So Queen Irini, using the power of the Alpha skinwalker slayed by her son, nearly seven centuries prior, sped across Arkansas pretending to be an angel. She didn’t know which of these two hunters’ blood she needed to drain to be granted the magic of an Alpha witch, only that they had both been there when Theodora died—and Irini slipped away from the coven with the priceless ancient book.  
Irini’s back ached against the creaky leather seat. Mortality sucked. When she succeeded, she would possess the power of both Heaven and the Children of Eve.

“Hey, Cas,” Dean murmured under his breathe, “Ya wanna get two motel rooms in this next town?” He waggled his eyebrows in his lover’s direction.

Irini wondered if the wise ass one would figure her out. She wondered if she could get the jump on both of these seasoned hunters or at least separate them for a better chance. She wondered if the angel, Castiel, was keeping well in his ring of holy fire.

Irini made Cas’ mouth smile, then wondered if this was the night.


	6. Stay Right There

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Cas Whump" Sorry. A little.

Castiel lay curled on his side, his naked vessel coated in soot from the nearby flames. At first, he had tried to struggle to his feet, but gave up when the weight of his shackles nearly landed him in the fire. The Enochian etched into the metal bound his grace, tighter and tighter. It twisted deep inside his true form, keening its freedom. The collar and cuffs were crafted from the same material as his angel blade, cutting into his skin sharply at their edges. These were weapons of Heaven. These could undo an angel of the Lord. Cas had been trapped in these by a little girl.

The area surrounding Eureka Springs had become a hit on angel radio. A hunter in possession of heavenly relics had gone missing—as well as the artifacts. After the Apocalypse was averted, weapons were stolen from Heaven and made their way to Earth. Most were recovered by angels, but some remained hidden and guarded by wards. When the wards broke or the weapons were used, they left a powerful footprint and Heaven went on alert. Castiel answered the call, but the celestial trail he followed led the angel straight to a crying child, tip-toeing along an alleyway and calling for “Max.”  
Cas crouched down and wiped at her tears, gently chiding that this was not a safe place to look for her pet. She only cried harder, insisting she’d seen her kitten slip under a boarded-up door, into a vacant building. The child seemed inconsolable, but hearkened when the angel easily jarred the door open.

“You stay right there,” Cas told the sniffling girl, as she bounced on her toes a bit, in her yellow dress.

Inside looked much like every other abandoned building Cas and the Winchesters had encountered—dark, dirty, and decorated in graffiti. “Here, um, Max. Here, er, kitty. Kitty. _Kiiitty_.” Cas turned at the little girl’s giggle, glad to see her smile but miffed she’d followed him in. His voice was stern, “I told you to wait outside.”

But the girl just excitedly pointed past the hem of Cas’ coat, “There! He just went under there!”  
“There” turned out to lead around a dark corner, into which Castiel, angel of the Lord, crawled on all fours. “I don’t see him, are you sur—” Cas paused, lifting his hand out of something wet. He rubbed the substance between his fingers, then his eyes went wide with understanding. That’s when the Enochian collar slammed around his neck. The writing glowed red and burned his skin, as Cas clutched at the searing metal with both hands, his grace retreating from his command. The world spun. Then the girl was there, close. “R-run,” was all he could say. She laughed again, this time mockingly, as she pressed the cuffs against the angel’s wrists, where they clasped on their own, rattling as Cas trembled under their power.

“There,” said the girl, her blond hair reflecting the glow of the shackles.  
“Who are you?” Cas panted, his graveled voice even deeper with the strain. The child reached out and took Cas’ face between her pale little hands and changed. Cas peered into his own face as the figure peeled the torn dress from what looked exactly like Cas’ bare vessel. “Don’t you mean what am I?”  
Cas’ double stripped him of his clothes, while he twitched in protest on the filthy floor, weak as the imaginary kitten that had gotten him there.

Fully dressed, not Cas looked exactly like the real article, but the angel still warned it, “They’ll know. You’re not the first skinwalker they’ve met—even if you don’t shed.  You must be very old—do you know who you’re—”

“I know what you know—you should know that. You are the Seraph, Castiel, best friend of the hunters, Sam and Dean Winchester—although that status has recently been upgraded, I see,” the skinwalker fumbled with finishing Cas’ tie, “I didn’t know angels did that sort of thing, but then again, you’re the first one I’ve met.”

It slipped Cas’ blade into an inside coat pocket, then startled, as the phone there jangled loudly against the metal. Checking the phone, it mouthed, “Dean,” then deposited it in Cas’ pants pocket, where it continued to buzz more quietly. The thing considered the fake badge, inside Cas’ wallet, thumbed through his cash, then pulled out a faded photograph. Castiel glared at the creature, as it inspected the photo of a young Sam and Dean Winchester—two boys on the hood of a shiny black car.

“What do you want with them? With me?”

Its tan arms crossed and the thing tilted its head, “Them? Oh, just a _liiiiittle_ blood. You?” Tan arms spread wide, “Isn’t it obvious? I want to be you. Well, not you, exactly—there’s a lot of things that want to kill you—but what’s inside you. With that kind of power, I’ll never need a spell again.” Castiel forced his shaky body onto its knees. “It won’t work, others have tried. Only an angel can—”  
A match hit the floor and Castiel was immediately surrounded by holy fire—a pointed reminder of the wet he’d put his hand in. Poor Cas shrunk from the deadly flames, cowering shackled and naked—powerless.

As his captor turned to leave, the phone began to vibrate again. “Gotta run, my spell’s calling.” Cas tried to stall him, shouting “Spell! What spell?”

But the thing that looked like Castiel just headed for the bent door, calling back, “What did you tell me? Oh, yeah— _you stay right there_.”


	7. I'm Sorry too

So far, the angel had been wrong. Sam and Dean Winchester seemed to buy Irini’s angel act—if not for a few minor hiccups. She had to pee again, she was getting hungry, again, and she was getting tired. Irini was getting tired of it all because, for centuries, she had it all. But now there was all this work; hiding, killing—blood—so much blood. She used to have a witch that took care of all that.  
It was late when the trio arrived in Eureka Springs and Dean surreptitiously rented two motel rooms, simply handing Sam a key, with a wink. Sighing, Sam dug his bag out of the trunk, “Don’t forget the safe knock this time, Dean. The world hasn’t made enough sanitizer to disinfect my brain of that image.”

Dean smirked at the memory, then eyed Castiel, standing some distance away, contemplating the town. “Listen, Sammy, if you hear the safe knock tonight, then something’s wrong.” Dean’s eyebrows did that thing again, so sporting a yucky face, Sam shook his hair like a wet dog, closed the trunk and headed for his room. 

Once inside their own room, Dean embraced his angel. Without unpacking, he pressed their lips together, as he walked them backwards towards the bed. Cas responded at first, then pushed Dean back slightly, pressing their foreheads together. “Aren’t we going to at least wait until Sam’s asleep?”  
“Cas, we’ve talked about this—he’s a big boy, he knows what we’re doing. Once in a blue moon, he does it himself.”

Dean leaned in and kissed Cas again, pressing into his body. “Is zat an anzel blade in yer pocket or ya zust happy ta see me?” asked Dean, through their smooshed-together lips.

“Actshually, my blade iz here,” Cas answered, best he could, producing the weapon from his upper coat.

Dean’s lips disengaged with an audible pop. “Way to kill the moment, angel.”

“I-I, uh—”

Dean threw back his head and burst out laughing. 

“You freakin’ nerd.”

The couple helped each other shed some clothes, down to their pants, continuing to make out like horny teenagers.

Suddenly, Cas stopped, landing small pecks on his partner and getting up. “Be right back.”  
Dean sat up, his hair on end and his face flushed, “Where the Hell you going?”  
“I’d like to freshen up for you, first,” Cas shot Dean a sultry smile—exactly how Cas never did.  
Suddenly, Dean was all business, “What’s with you, Cas? You’ve been acting weird all day,” Dean stood and confronted his angel, “What are you hiding?”

“I’m not hiding anything, Dean.” Cas spoke slowly and deliberately. “I can’t believe you don’t trust me—me, Dean!” He took a step and Dean took a step back. “How many times have I saved your life? Sam’s life? I fell for you, forsook Heaven, my Father,” Cas kept moving forward, his voice low and dangerous, “I know I’ve made mistakes, but I did everything for you.”

Cas had backed Dean against a wall. The hunter stared at his angry angel, stunned. Then Dean’s lip twitched into the slightest smile, “Hello, Dom Cas.”

The hunter slid by the angel, taking his hand and leading him towards the bed. “I’m sorry, Cas, you’re right. Let me make it up to you.”

The hilt of the angel blade hit Dean square on the back of his head.  
As Irini caught Dean’s body in Cas’ arms, she made the angel’s mouth say,

“I’m sorry too, Dean.”


	8. Crummy Illusions

Dean’s first thought, as he came to was “ _kinky_.”  He was stretched tight on his back across the motel mattress, his feet bound wide apart to the bed frame, his hands lashed together with—was that Cas’ tie?  Dean craned his neck to see above his hairline, and yup, his hands were neck-tied to the railed headboard—which, like in all low-end motels, had been screwed to the wall. 

“Well, at least I’m wearing my pants,” thought the hunter, unable to voice his quip aloud, due to some noxious tasting cloth he’d been gagged with.

The thing that looked like Cas but was definitely _not Cas_ stood over him, a curved knife in its hand.  Dean protested behind the gag, struggling against his binds.  “Where’s Cas, you son-of-a-bitch?” Dean tried to demand, though his stuffed mouth made him as articulate as Charlie Brown’s teacher—underwater.   

Cas’ head shook and his mouth tsked the hunter, chiding, “I’ve had to listen to you all damn day, Dean—can’tcha give a girl a break?”

Dean tried again, but Cas’ hand just stuffed the sock deeper into his mouth.  “You know, because of you, I nearly wet these polyester pants _twice_.”  Patting the angel’s half-naked body down, Cas’ hands feigned searching for something, “Now, where did I put--?” his face lit up, as it flicked his wrist and uttered a foreign word.  A large book appeared in the angel’s hand, seemingly out of thin air.  The book looked very old, slightly charred, and covered in runes and symbols.  Dean watched as not Cas made a show of presenting it.  “That handy trick’s right on the cover.”

The thing set Cas’ hands to work, sprinkling herbs around the squirming hunter and across his bare torso.  It referred to the book, periodically, apparently following a recipe.  Dean motioned toward the pages with his chin, “What’s with the Betty Crocker act?  No mojo?“  Again, this came out a garbled mess, but the thing that was not an angel seemed to get Dean’s drift—and his drift vexed it. 

“True,” it spat the word, bitterly, “the book doesn’t work for me, not really.  I can only create illusions and temporary spells—but you hold the power I need.  You killed its author…or at least one of you did.  Tell me,” Cas’ hand ran the knife's edge along the tender skin over Dean's rib cage, drawing blood and smudging it with Cas’ elbow, “Did you kill my Alpha witch or was it your brother?  I’ll kill you both, anyway, but two bodies worth of blood is a lot of cleanup.”

Dean struggled in earnest, as the thing cut him, then threw an absolute tantrum at the mention of Sam, jerking at his ankles and wrists wildly, “Leave Sam alone!” Dean told the saliva-soaked sock, slamming his bound hands against the head board, repeatedly.  He only stopped when he felt the tip of the dagger on his throat.  The thrum of power that hung in the room nearly drowned out the chanted Anatolian spell.

“Y-you’re a skinwalker, a copy.  Cas isn’t in there, right?”

It laughed.  “If he was, would he let me do this?”

Dean watched as the creature that looked like his Castiel raised the blade up in both its hands and plunged it downward.

Then he watched as all six foot, four inches of Sam Winchester slammed into the creature, knocking the dagger from its grasp and sprawling them both on the floor, beside the bed. 

Sam managed to punch Cas’ face a few times, emphasizing the blows with the syllables, “SE-CRET-KNOCK,” before the stunned thing blocked and rolled out from under him.  It clamored to its bare feet, as Dean strained his neck to grasp the handle of the knife in his lips and pass it up to his bound hands.  Sam made to lunge again, but the thing with his best friend’s bleeding face muttered a phrase and the hunter was stopped in his tracks by the gun it now pointed at him.

It swiped at its wet nose, “I hate blood, you idiots—why do I have to deal with so much blood?  Have it your way, boys—you can both be in my ritual.”  Sam raised his palms and back-pedaled, as Cas’ mouth once again spoke the ancient tongue.  A steel cage materialized around the hunter and Sam began to panic.  They were trapped.  This was not Cas.  This thing had power—more power than a skinwalker should—and it wanted them both dead.

“It’s just crummy illusions, Sam!  It isn’t real magic!” Dean spat the words, along with the taste of the moist sock.  The sliced ends of Cas’ tie dangled from each of the hunter’s free wrists.

Sam didn’t understand, but he trusted his brother with his soul.  Taking a step forward, the bars gave way to his body, without barely a ripple in his wake.  The hunter bent quickly, then drew himself up to his full impressive height—aiming the Colt from his leg holster directly at the illusionist’s head. 

“You got me, Sam,” it said, whispering its weapon away into the air and holding up its hands.  “But if you kill me, you’ll never see the angel again.”

“Where’s Cas?” Dean boomed behind his brother.

The Cas figure ignored him, focusing on the Colt's barrel.  “My, my…he _is_ the histrionic one, isn’t he?”

Sam cocked the long gun and steadied his aim. “Where’s Cas?” he repeated, “You’ve got five seconds to live, then we find him ourselves.” 

Castiel’s mouth spoke a word, reaching out one hand. It expected something there.

“Looking for this?” asked Dean, holding up a closed fist.  He smiled, “That one’s on the cover.”

The thing bellowed, the room filled with smoke—and it was gone. 

Sam finished untying his brother, while Dean inspected his wound.  It wasn’t deep, but it was long. 

“I thought you said it wasn’t magic?  How’d it disappear?”

As the cloud settled, Dean pointed past his Sam, into the parking lot.  “It didn’t.  Went out the damn door.”

Dean opened his fist and repeated the one-word spell he had mimicked.  The age-old book swirled into view.  “It’s weird, but I could still feel it in my hand, like _under_ my skin.”

Sam inspected the volume, marveling at the ancient text.  “At least we have this,” Sam reached for the dagger, “and its knife.”

But Dean looked stricken, his green eyes darting around the room; to the book, the dagger, and finally meeting his brother’s. He only managed four words, “It’s got Cas, Sammy.”

Sam couldn’t look away.  His brother’s eyes were wet.

 


	9. The Four Steps

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short chapter about a miserable old queen.

Theodora had never been a particularly ambitious witch. Sure, she had populated Eastern Europe, parts of Asia, and the early American colonies with natural witches, but the Alpha did so in order to ensure her own survival. Safety in numbers had borne her through the centuries, as Eve had intended. Theodora retained the alliance with her queen, doling out to Irini magical favors—but never sought to increase her own powers—instead, she spread them, content with the formidable magic granted by her creator. Irini always thought her witch had so much more potential—but then again, her witch had never lost her magnum opus.

The night the skinwalker made off with the witch’s book was the first time she’d laid her hands on it. While the Alpha’s death would have lasting consequences for the old queen, her presence at the coven that night, in the guise of a rich teen seeking a love potion—was a stroke of fortunate luck. Theodora lay dead and her burning coven in pandemonium. Irini seized the book off the altar and ran straight through the flames, past the men in flannel with the impossible gun. Tonight, as she stared down the barrel of that impossible gun, aimed by one of the very same flannel-clad men, Irini felt true mortality for the first time in seven hundred years. Her witch, the book, the dagger—all gone—but she had the angel.

She had honed her acting skills across those years, but not necessarily her script writing.  She knew “You’ll never see the angel again” was a bit melodramatic, but it hit a nerve—two, apparently. But then that idiot had compressed Theodora’s book, possessing it. Damn. Damn, damn, damn. So now Queen Irini sat on a bench across town, the angel’s feet icy on the sidewalk, its shoulders wrapped in a discarded newspaper. She was becoming more mortal by the day.  The queen was was hungry, exhausted—and dammit, she had to pee _again_.

Since her Alpha’s death, the skinwalker had changed after each hunter sacrifice. Could she even keep changing without recasting the spell? Cold, miserable, and on the losing end of things for the first time in centuries, Irini doubted her witch’s promise about her son. His murder should have been unforgivable, even though the Alpha had granted her all she asked for. Now she had lost everything—would she lose her last piece of him too? She had to take steps. The queen swiped at the moisture on Cas’ cheeks and peeled off a page of newspaper. Dabbing her wet fingers, she used Dean’s drying blood as an inkwell and began to write.

First step, clothes

Second step, food

Third step, kill the Winchesters, become an Alpha witch

Fourth step-- By now, the queen’s tears had dried, so she licked Cas’ fingers before again touching the bloody elbow. She thickened the letters to emphasize the importance of the fourth step:

**Become an angel**


	10. I Hate that Witch

Sam and Dean had to take steps--and fast.

Their first step—hit the road before Not Cas comes back.

Their second step—find Not Cas before it finds them.

Their third step—find Cas.

Their fourth step—find Cas.

Fifth, Find Cas…Sixth, find Cas Sev— “Dean, what are you writing?” Riding shotgun, nursing his aching head, Dean looked up at his brother. “Huh? Oh, uh, I’m just trying to make a game plan.” Dean folded the paper into his pocket. “We’ll find him, Dean.”

Dean nodded and stared out the windshield, into the driving rain. “You think he’s hurt, Sam? You think it hurt him?” Sam chewed on his thumbnail and didn’t answer right away. Then he said, “He’s alive, Dean, I’m sure of it. Why would it choose him if it didn’t need him for something? I mean, it could’ve become you or me instead of tackling an angel.”

“How do we know it even has him? I mean, we know what it takes to get the jump on Cas.”

“If it doesn’t have him, then where is he, Dean?”

The Impala tore through a puddle as Sam pulled into the next town. They needed some distance from the creature—but not too much. If they lost it, they lost Cas too. They parked a mile from a motel and carried their bags over their heads, to shield them from the downpour. Drying out in their motel room, weary from the heavy gear, the brothers sprawled on the ugly bedspreads. While Dean made a game of pretending he wasn’t checking his phone every five minutes, Sam explored the ancient text. Referencing his laptop, the hunter painstakingly began to translate the archaic Anatolian.

“Check this out.”

Dean dropped his phone on his chest, but managed a casual, “Yeah?”

“One of these spells is in Enochian.” Dean sat up, swinging his legs to face his brother. “The Hell you say?”

“Enochian. I didn’t recognize it at first, because it’s overlaid with runes—code switching. From what I’ve untangled, it looks like it might be some kind of relocation spell.”

Dean hearkened, “Great, maybe we can use it to locate Cas.” Sam shook his damp head, “ _Re_ locate, Dean.“ He turned the book toward his brother and pointed, “See these two symbols? They mean from the angel.”

“Son of a bitch. What can you get from an angel?" The hunter's face fell, "His grace, Sam. It wants Cas’ grace.”

“But Dean, you said it couldn’t really make the book work. So, how?”

“How is we killed its Alpha witch. ‘Said we got her power—not really got it, but carry it. Had to do with which one of us ganked the witch.”

“We both did, Dean.”

“You shot her—”

“But you threw her into the bullet.” Dean scratched his head, “So, if it gets the book, the spell and kills us both, it becomes the Alpha and can perform any spell it wants.”

“Including _this one_ , Dean. Angel trumps Alpha.”

Dean let his body fall back across the bed. “This is nuts, Sam. We can’t let it find us or the book—but we gotta find it to find Cas.” Putting the book down, Sam began to dial his phone.

“Who you callin’?”

“Rowena.” Dean was on his feet, grappling for Sam’s phone, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa—no you don’t!” Sam held the phone away from his brother, at arm’s length, which was quite far. “Like it or not, we need a witch, Dean.” Sam had to shift further away, as Dean jumped on his bed and nearly snagged the phone. It was ringing. “Sammy, please. Did you forget what she did to him? That attack dog thing, he nearly killed me. Cas nearly _killed me_ , Sam.”

“Hello?” said the phone in a Scottish brogue. Sam watched his brother’s eyes go wide, pleading. “ _Helllllloo_ ,” the brogue was annoyed. Sam hung up the call with a defeated sigh, “Fine, Dean. We’ll look for another way.”

“Thanks, man. I hate that witch.”

“If we can’t find one, Dean, we’re gonna need her.”

“Fine.” “Fine.”

With the ancient word, the spell book compressed into Dean’s hand. “Can’t leave this around.”

As dawn approached, the brothers settled into their lumpy motel beds. Sam’s feet hanging off the end of his didn’t prevent him from falling deeply asleep, snoring into his pillow. Dean lay in the growing light, watching his brother breathe. He wrapped himself around his pillow and prayed silently to Castiel—again. The hunter had hoped beyond hope that finding his angel would be as easy as a prayer. When Dean prayed, Cas always answered. But not this time.

Tossing back the covers, Dean crossed the room and opened his duffel. He quietly moved the weapons aside, then reverently pulled out Cas’ trench coat. Dean stood, dangling the coat in front of him by the shoulders. Then he glanced over at Sam before hugging the tan material, tightly to his chest.

When he was ready, he made his way back to bed, fluffing his pillow and curling up around his angel’s coat, instead.


	11. No Shirt, No Shoes, No Service

Irini was one hundred percent done with society, mortality, and all things human.  Planning her powerful rise above it all had bolstered her mood—for all of ten minutes.  That’s when the sky opened up and dumped a heap of cartoon-like freezing rain on her.  As the drops washed away the bloody list of doom she had painted across the weather page, she thought how prophetic is was to watch this very forecast appear. 

Correction.  The queen was one hundred and _fifty_ percent done. 

Right, first step first.

She made a soggy bonnet from her former list and plodded off on numb bare feet toward Main Street.  Looking like a shirtless vagrant was going to slow her progress.  She made a mental note to next time don the nearest trench coat before engaging in ritual sacrifice.  What she wouldn’t give to wrap this shivering frame in that unstylish mile of tan right now. 

The businesses were all dark, save for a Gas n’ Sip and the bus station.  First step first.  A bell sounded as she entered the convenience mart, discarding her head covering.  “No shirt, no shoes, no service.”

The husky clerk barely looked up from his girlie magazine—if he did, he might have noticed that his visitor’s eyes reflected brightly on the security monitor. 

“I won’t be any trouble.  Please, I just need to dry off a few minutes.”

The clerk snapped his bubble gum loudly and reluctantly pulled his attention away from bare breasts.  “That’s why they got shelters, now scram, ‘fore I call the cops.”

Irini inched Cas’ dripping frame closer to the counter.  Thanks to Cas, she knew a lot about Gas n’ Sips.  The angel’s memory revealed the company installed its panic buttons just under the register, some distance from this rude clerk, who had left his post to ogle the skin mags.

“Please, can I at least use your restroom?”  The queen hated begging this _servant_ , but she was almost to the register.  While the Gas n’ Sip corporation had a strict policy to cooperate in a robbery, she knew what Cas knew—that most of their graveyard shift workers nonetheless concealed weapons.  Being human was dangerous. 

“I said beat it, ass—”

The clerk moved fast for a heavy man, but Cas’ fit body was quicker.  Diving over the counter, it was back on its feet before the other man finished, “—hole.”  The man’s gum fell to the floor, as he held up his hands.  Things were always easier with a gun.  “Turn around,” commanded Irini. 

“Y-you’re on camera, man.  Just take the money and go, I’m cool with it.”

“So am I.”  She knocked him out with his own gun and stood over his unconscious bulk, “What size are you?”

Irini locked the door, dragged the clerk behind a back aisle, and began to undress him.  As she slipped his XXL shirt over Cas’ narrower shoulders, she considered becoming this man, this “Francis,” according to the nametag on his company vest.  Even with her mortal needs becoming stronger, she sensed she could still shapeshift—but for how much longer?  The Winchesters could recognize their angel’s face, but she might still need it to get close to them—and the book.  Again, the queen doubted her witch’s promise.  She continued to dress Cas as Francis—until she got to his pants. They were not only plus-sized but Irini balked at their length, or lack thereof.  Castiel had at least six inches on this man.  Oh well, the polyester ones were already drying.  She took his keys and slipped blessedly dry socks into wide shoes, eyeing the rows of snacks.

Second step: Irini raided the fridge and the shelves, stuffing Cas’ mouth full of power bars, chips, and Gatorade.  She crammed his pockets with more of the same, making room by transferring Cas’ phone to the oversized shirt.  ‘Missed call: Dean’ glowed through the material.

 

What to do with the half-naked clerk? Irini considered killing him, but without her knife, she didn't want to waste her precious few bullets. She bound Francis with duct tape, then emptied the register and headed out into the rain.

Pressing the remote, Irini followed the “boop-boop” to Francis’ Corolla and steered it toward the motel she had fled earlier.  She doubted the Winchesters were still there, but without the book, she no longer had even the simplest tracking magic.  She had used the book to find the hunters she needed, but her lack of magic limited the spell’s reach.  It’s what had kept her one area—a dangerous prospect for any skinwalker.  While most of the witch’s volume was penned in the queen’s native tongue, there were sections in code and languages she’d not encountered, even in her centuries of life.  But hunters knew things.  Irini thought he last hunter she had taken was useless—he hadn’t even killed in years.  But the man bargained for his life, translating her book from what he called Enochian—and promising his captor a heaven-made weapon.  After she drained his blood, the queen that looked like the hunter’s little girl set off with the angelic manacles—and a new ambition.

As she pulled the green Toyota up to the motel, she scanned the parking lot with Cas’ blue eyes, then headed for the exit.   Irini knew from Cas’ memory that the brothers would not leave their precious “Baby” behind.  They wouldn’t drive back to the bunker, either—she’d been there. 

The Winchesters had the book—and hunters knew things.  They would look for their angel and the book would help them find him.

Third step.  Irini would be waiting.


	12. Speak of the Devils

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the blocking typos in the last chapters. AO3 did something and pasting from Word changes the text layout, so I had to go back and re-space everything. I'll double-check it as I go from now on (see--told you my no more screw-up promise was ill-fated).

The witches were all suspicious, astral projecting and dream walking behind her back.  The witches knew she was lying about consorting with her son, her sordid history with The Grand Coven—and her association with the Winchesters.  The witches were all jealous bitches.

Rowena, for one, didn’t need them and so against instinct and tradition, she chose to go it solo.  Sure, her independence followed her expulsion from The Grand Coven due to her—what had they called it?  _Ruthlessly blind ambition_ (was that a bad thing?)  but ‘Rowena Against the World’ had worked thus far, barring a few minor glitches.  And without the coven’s rules and codes, she’d bargained, manipulated, and stole enough power to hold her own against nearly any other witch—aside from the Alpha. 

Theodora could rot with her silly sisterhood, while Rowena hobnobbed with the who’s who of Heaven and Hell.

Her son was a king (that she despised him was beside the point), she could control the mind of an angel—Hell, she even survived the Winchesters.

And now that Rowena had survived Theodora herself, the Alpha’s “silly sisterhood” had potential—with the right leadership.  And to think that of all the extraordinary magic, the powers from above and below, and the formidable monsters that roamed the Earth, Theodora, born of Eve had been ended by the Winch—

Rowena’s phone rang—speak of the devils.  But the devils had hung up.  No bother, they needed her for something—they would be calling back.  She could find them easily and the bunker was only as witch-proof as their wards—which any human could nullify.  She did wonder what sort of desperation the hunters had to be facing to reach out to her—the older one wouldn’t want her help, if he was losing those good looks. 

What could be after them that the almighty Colt—or their almighty angel couldn’t smite?

The comely redhead sat on a veranda, watching the sunset streak the sky over her private beach and sipped at her syrupy cocktail—too much honey.  She slid her sunglasses down and glanced over at the silent phone, but her expectant look didn’t prompt it to ring again.  No bother, she would spend her time conspiring her takeover of the coven that had tossed her out and leave the Winchesters to stew in their desperation.  When they rang her again, she was sure that desperation would taste sweeter than her drink.


	13. Thinking in Metaphors

Dean stirred slowly from his sleep, snuggling closer to his angel. He sighed as Cas turned and drew his head onto his broad shoulder, leaving the weight of his hand in Dean’s hair. “Mmmm, missed you,” Dean told the shoulder, landing small kisses on his angel’s skin. The hunter wrapped a leg over his partner and breathed in his scent, all at once musky and electric—like the air before a thunder storm. Dean had missed him. Since the night they first met in that barn, the times they had been apart had been frequent—but none carried the cold emptiness that had filled Dean these last few days. In Castiel’s absence, Dean had breathed ice water and moved through space without purchase, gliding along an endless tunnel, dark at both ends, voices like buzzing insects in his ear…endless buzzing, buzzing—clunk!

Dean sat up in a cold sweat, his face pressed into Cas’ trench coat, alone in the motel bed. His hands trembled as he wiped his damp eyes with the cherished material and gulped air, trying to get a hold of himself. The other bed was empty so at least he didn’t have an audience. Dean swung his legs and sat up, shaking the folds from the coat, well-pressed from Dean’s dream grip. He cleared his throat and checked the time—almost ten, no wonder he’d had a nightmare, he’d slept too long. Was that a nightmare? It had actually been wonderful, a warm sweater out of the dryer on a cold day—why the Hell was Dean thinking in metaphors? But even as he chanced a chuckle at himself, he ran a hand through the empty sheets, grasping at the fading relief of the dream. 

Dean reached for his phone, buzzing again on the carpet, where it had fallen, after vibrating off the nightstand. “Sam, where are you?”

“In town. I’ve shown Cas’ picture around and I was gonna head to the police station and see if there’s been any new disappearances. You ok?”

“Yeah, why?” Dean scrubbed his hand over his face and sat up straighter, like his brother could see him. 

“Just checking. You were really out, so I let you sleep. There’s coffee on the table, probably cold, but…you’re sure you’re ok?”

Sam had seen Dean with Cas’ coat. Oh well. Dean used to snag sheets off the chambermaid’s cart to keep his father from knowing his six-year old brother still wet the motel bed.

“Yeah, Sammy, I’m fine. Just need to find him.”

“I’m working on it, Dean. Why don’t you clean up and after the station, I’ll grab us some food.”  
“Sounds good. See you in a few.”

Gulping down the cold coffee, Dean took a shower and dressed. He carefully folded the trench coat and packed it away, then got to work.

Saying the Altonian word Dean watched the book appear in his hands. He ran his fingers across the writing on the cover and wondered which one he had spoken. Opening Sam’s laptop, Dean took a seat at the table and scrolled through the search history. Sure enough, pages of the very same Arabic came up, along with some runes and their translations. The hunter opened the book, intent on interpreting the spell that could find Cas—or at least find the skinwalker. An hour went by and Dean had succeeded only in learning the magic words to create or end a great plague and the long (disgusting) ingredients list used in hex bags.

He got stuck on a page that seemed to be a purity spell, but some of the text wasn’t clear. He identified a word meaning ‘like new’ but it was nestled between unidentifiable symbols. The rest of the spell translated to ‘cleansing experience.’ Had Dean not woken up desperately clinging to a fading Castiel, he might have been in enough humor to voice an enema joke, but as it stood, the words rang a serious note. “Cleansing our experience. Like we never killed that witch.”

The secret knock rapped against the motel door and Sam entered, in his FBI wear, carrying a savory-smelling bag.

As they sat down to eat, Dean set to proudly sharing his discovery with his brother. “Sammy, check this out.”


	14. A Nerd in Every Language

“No, Dean—no way.”

Sam’s rejection of Dean’s idea couldn’t have been more absolute if he had slammed the book shut in his face. “We’re not messing with this thing without Rowena.”

Dean tossed the plastic fork into his take-out and squared his shoulders. “You agreed only if we couldn’t find another way—this is another way, Sam! If we wipe off all traces that we killed the Alpha, the skinwalker can’t use us to mojo up.”

Sam wiped his mouth and shook his head, “Traces? It says ‘experience.’ How do we know this doesn’t erase our memories?”

“Cuz that spell’s on another, page. I’m not an idiot, Sam.”

“I didn’t say you were, but Dean, but your translation is off. The placement of this rune changes the meaning—it’s like a magic modifier.”

“You know you’re a nerd in every language, right?”

Bitch face number two. 

“Well, what else do we got? Nobody’s seen Cas and you said the only missing persons case involved a robbery and a kid—not our walker’s MO.”

“Didn’t seem like it, but he does fit into the timeline and Dean—the guy was self-employed, had a long history of injuries, and the police found an arsenal in his cracked safe—untouched.” Sam searched his tablet and found the man’s picture, “And he was living under an alias. His real name is Jason Feller.” Dean shrugged as he peered at the man with the little girl, apparently in their Sunday best.

Picking at a chicken wing, Dean said, “Guess we don’t know every hunter alive, eh?”

“He’s probably not alive, Dean. Or his daughter.”

The two sat in companionable silence, washing their meal down with beer and gloom. Dean couldn’t stop thinking about the girl, smiling in her yellow dress.

“If this thing will kill a kid, Sam. It won’t think twice about killing Cas.”

“It needs him, Dean—and us—and the book. Hell, maybe it needs its fancy knife. My point is, we’ve got everything. Except Cas.”

 _I’d trade it all to have him back_ , Dean thought, then aloud, “This 'like-new' spell could be our only chance to get close to her, Sammy—to find him.”

While Sam doubled down his brother’s efforts to find a more solid spell, Dean called hunters, giving them the head’s up on the skinwalker and looking further into Jason Feller. It didn’t take long to confirm the man was not only in their line of business, but also an entrepreneur, of sorts. Dean learned the man hunted, but not always to kill. Witnessed making deals with monsters and demons alike, it was hard to tell whose side Feller was on—aside from his own. There were rumors that his wife had been a casualty of a deal gone sour and Feller had gone off the radar, to protect their only child. Dean was never surprised by the paths chosen by hunters of the supernatural.

By evening, Sam was seeing Altonian when he closed his eyes and Dean was ready to kill Feller himself, should he get the opportunity. But from the other hunters, he also tracked a trail of MIA’s from Arkansas to Nebraska—ground zero for the dead Alpha. Dean had been reluctant to join that hunt from the start—witches got under his skin like no other creatures and he had tried to talk Sam out of it. But in the end, the brothers did what they did best—they hunted—and rolled a Yahtzee. 

“Dean, I think I got something.”

“Better than my spic and span spell?”

“Clearer, anyway. Check it out, this one’s a straight translation. You’ve tried to pray to Cas, right?”

“Of course I tried, Sam! I haven’t stopped, since that thing took off.”

Sam raised a hand, “I know, I know, Dean, I’m sorry. I’ve prayed too.” He slid the book over to his brother, “Cas would answer, if he could. Something’s blocking the line.”

“So, what’s this?”

“A way to boost reception. It’s a dream walking spell. If we can’t find him, maybe we can talk to him.”

Dean lay on the moldy motel carpet, his head resting in a sigil shaped from their leftover chicken bones. “I thought we weren’t gonna mess with this powerful hoodoo without Broom Hilda.”

“We’ve both dream walked before, Dean and its one of the simplest spells in the book. Worst case, it doesn’t work.” Dean closed his eyes, “Best case, my hair smells finger-lickin’ good.” 

Sam cleared his throat and began to speak the ritual, carefully pronouncing the old tongue. Dean concentrated on Castiel, picturing his face, his voice, his presence. Sam spoke in a whisper now—or was he further away? Maybe, he’d just take a peek. 

All at once, it didn’t matter anymore, because when Dean opened his eyes, he saw sapphires staring back. 

“Cas?”


	15. Beyond the Fire

“Hello, Dean.”

Cas’ voice sounded weighted—pained.

Dean tried to touch his angel’s face, but his hands were filmy and made no contact. But just because Dean couldn’t touch didn’t mean he couldn’t feel. It was hot here, the kind of hot that makes your hair sweat. And yet, the floor underneath him felt cold—was he on the floor?

He wanted to look around, but the sight of Cas so close made him scared to look away. Maybe Cas was made of the film and not Dean—maybe a turn of his head would move the hot air through his angel and he’d fade away.

“I prayed, Cas.”

“Heard you. Are you ok?” 

“I’m fine. Where are you?”

“Arkansas, last I knew. Dean, how are you here?”

“A spell, Cas. A lot’s happened—there’s this skinwalker—”

“She’s an Alpha, Dean. She has me. My grace is locked…can’t fly, can’t heal, can’t move.” Cas heaved breathes, as he spoke.

“Can’t heal? Cas, did she hurt you?”

The angel twitched his head almost imperceptively, “I’m trapped, Dean. It’s so hot, Dean.”

All at once, the heat around them became flames—or had they always been there?

“Trapped where?  Where are you, Cas?”

“You can’t come here, Dean—she’s here—it’s what she wants. She has a spell.”

“She’s got squat. We have her book.”

“Hide the book.  Run.”

“I’m not going anywhere without you, Cas.” Dean tried once again to touch Cas’ face, this time keeping his sheer hands there, still unfeeling. The flames grew brighter, the floor colder, and Castiel’s full frame came into view. He was naked and sooty, his bright eyes dulled. Dean stared in horror at the heavy metal collar and cuffs, their ominous glow reflecting off the angel’s damp skin. Cas’ eyes drifted, slowly and Dean’s followed.

The room was dark beyond the fire, shadowed shapes in grays and blacks. A scrap of color caught Dean’s eye—a yellow, frilly thing. All at once the yellow, gray, and black swirled together and dissolved.

“Run.”

“Cas? Cas! Cas!”

Dean screamed as his angel melted before his eyes—and Dean melted into him, plunging, falling, twisting in space. The fire was gone, this new place, frigid and barren. Far, far below, Dean could just make out a faint blue glow, struggling to expand, but compressed by a mighty, invisible weight. The further Dean fell, the further away the light got, as Dean tried to find his voice, mouthing Castiel’s name again and again…falling, twisting.

The floor. Dean was on a rug. And it stank. As the swirling feeling slowly faded, Dean became aware that he was shaking—no, someone was shaking him.

“Dean! C’mon, man, come back.” Dean opened his eyes.

“Sammy? Sammy, she’s got Cas. He’s trapped.”

Sam helped his brother sit up, bones scattered around him. “ _She_?”

Dean’s words tumbled out, “That’s what Cas said. Sam, it’s like he’s in a cage, but the cage is him,” he rubbed his eyes and shook his head, “I don’t know.  He’s in holy fire—and irons. And his grace, his grace is smothered, so tiny—it’s like it’s being tortured— _it hurts_.  Sam, she’s hurting him.”

Sam lifted a bottle of water to his brother’s lips and after a few swallows, helped him to his feet.

“Any idea where he is?”

“He’s here, in the state. Someplace big and dark. And dirty.”

Sam sighed, “Not much to go on.”

Dean closed his eyes, trying to remember every detail of his time with Cas. He frowned, picturing the angel’s grimy skin, the unforgiving metal—the bright blaze and the gray shadows.  Dean smiled and opened his eyes wide.

“He’s here, Sam. Cas is right here, in Cedar Township.”


	16. Everything Ends with Blood

Home to less than four thousand residents, Cedar Township quietly hugged the Eastern border of Polk County, Arkansas.  Thirty-five square miles of complete normalcy was exactly what Jason Feller had needed to keep he and his daughter out of the hunter headlines.  Kelly had only been a toddler when _something_ took her mother in the night.  A powerful instrument had fallen into her father’s opportunistic hands and the _something_ cashed in on the deal he broke to get it.  Desperate to hide his daughter, Jason fled to the tiny district, where he warded both his treasure and his family.  Settled under aliases, they eluded the hunting life for years.  But the life had a way of finding a hunter—and landing a hunter in a wooden box.

Irini sat Cas’ backside down on a wooden box and watched the angel’s labored breathing.  She peeled the greasy meat off of a rotisserie chicken and slurped it between the full lips she’d borrowed.  “Hungry?” Castiel didn’t answer, the rapid, shallow rise and fall of his chest his only movement.  The holy fire danced in his eyes.

“Suits yourself—you know, these things are _heavenly_.”  It licked Cas’ copied fingers, even as it spied a slight twitch from the real McCoy. 

“Pun intended.  I gotta tell you, one day with that Dean Winchester was a day too many.  Why do you put up with that?  Don’t you think an angel deserves more respect?  I do.  Do you think anyone’s going to treat _me_ like their ‘buddy’ once I get that angel juice?  Not Dean or his giant brother, I can assure you—they’ll be long-gone by then.”

Another twitch from the defeated seraph, who continued to stare, unblinking.

“You are ridiculously attached to those guys, huh?  I mean, I get that the pretty one’s your boyfriend—guess even Heaven gets lonely—but what’s the magic behind this-this _bond?_ I mean, all of you have deceived one another, again and again—only to what?   Forgive and forget?”  The queen was on her feet now, looking down at her captor.  She mocked a country accent, “ _Family don’t end with blood_ —what the Hell is that supposed to mean?  _Everything_ ends with blood.  Royal blood, Alpha’s blood, _hunter’s_ blood.  Your hunters will bleed and give me back the power of my Alpha—and with her power, I’ll take _yours_.”

The broken angel sat crumpled on the cement, his cuffed hands hanging limply.  He stared.  Disgusted, Irini stepped back into the shadows.  Cas’ eyes shifted after her and he softly spoke his first word since Irini had returned.

“Run.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: I made a tiny edit to chapter 14 for continuity purposes, that won't affect the story. (I asked Cas for permission, but he just stared--go figure.)


	17. Stupid for the Right Reason

“I think I got it, Dean.  The packaging plant.  It’s been closed ten years and it’s isolated.”

“And the other old businesses?”

“They’re all smaller, more modern, in the middle of town.  The plant sounds more like your description.”

“Then we start there.“

 Rummaging through their bags for a silver knife, Dean tossed clothes and random weapons aside. 

Sam left his laptop and with a grip, stilled his brother’s frantic search, “Dean, slow down.  We need a plan.”

“Cas doesn’t have time for us to slow down—she’s torturing him.  Look—we know where he is, I saw the dress, the one Jason Feller's kid wore in the picture, all we—”

“All we gotta do is charge in there and give her what she wants?  Dean, if she gets the Alpha’s power, she won’t stop.  Cas is as good as dead, anyway.”

Dean yanked his arm from his brother’s grasp and gave him a face full of finger. 

“No he’s not, Sam!  Cas is not gonna die—not like this.”

“Then we call Rowena.  She was part of that coven, once, she’ll know how to work the book.”  Sam reached in in pocket, but Dean slapped his hand.

“Yeah, she’ll know how to work it all right.  What’s to prevent her from taking that thing’s place?  You think she won’t jump at the chance to be the queen witch?  Then she’ll have the power to take Cas’ grace and the whole damn world loses!”

Sam stepped back and let that sink in.  After a moment, he told his seething brother, “You’re not wrong, Dean.  What about Crowley?  He hates his mother and would never let her—”

“Never let her get that grace _first_.  He’d want it, too.  We’re screwed, Sammy.”

Walking back to the table to close his laptop, Sam’s eyes rested on the book.  He glanced over at Dean, but his brother had turned away from him, his focus far off.

“You know, every time we’ve done something stupid for the right reason, it’s worked out…eventually,” Dean snorted at how foolish he knew that sounded. He stared out the window, then he quietly admitted to his brother, “Me and Cas, we’ve just started.  I can’t lose him.”

Watching Dean struggle tugged at something in Sam, until the hunter sighed deeply and asked, “Is the herb bag in the trunk?” He ran his finger along a page, “Apparently, purity requires seasoning.”

 

Pushing back the furniture, the brothers set to work making small piles with various ingredients and spray-painting a large pentagram on the rug (there went another security deposit).  They stood and faced each other in the circle, as Dean once again recycled his lunch scraps, sprinkling the bones around them.  Sam held the spell book open on his palms, as he waited for the midnight hour and steeled himself to perform witchcraft. 

“This better work.”

“It has to work, Sam.”

When the alarm on his phone sounded, Sam placed a hand on Dean’s shoulder and began to read aloud.  He had combed over the language all afternoon, practicing his pronunciation and feeling out the tongue’s cadence.  As he read, Dean watched him intently, waiting for something to happen.  Something happened.  As Sam carefully read between the runes, his voice grew louder, as there came a rushing sound, echoing off the motel room walls.  The air moved around the brothers and Sam had to toss his hair from his eyes to continue reading.  As he spoke the last line, the expectant look on his brother’s face seemed softer, Dean’s eyes round and huge.  The book seemed huge, too.  The whole room seemed to be growing.

Someone squeaked, “What the--?” Dean clapped his hands over his own mouth in shock, wide eyes still on his younger brother.

His _much_ younger brother.


	18. Under their Angel's Coat

“Sam! What did you do?  You read it wrong!”  Dean shouted his shrill voice at his brother, whose head and hands just stuck out of a pool of clothing.  “Shut up, Dean!  I did it right!”  His words were angry, but his chubby little face looked like it he was on the verge of tears.  After some more yelling, a tug-of-war match with the magic book, and at least one unceremonious shove, the boys tried to collect themselves and take stock of their situation.  Sam plopped down on the rug, swimming inside his his huge button-down, while Dean paced on short bow legs, his Zeppelin t-shirt hanging on him like a dress.

“It didn’t work.  If we were screwed before, we’re really screwed now, Sam.”

Turning to the book, the younger boy used both his hands to brush his hair out of his eyes, “I don’t know, Dean—who says it didn’t work?”

Dean spun around and splayed his arms wide, “In case you didn’t notice, we’re both vertically-challenged, Sam!  I mean, what am I, like ten?  That would make you a few years out of diapers.”

Again, Sam’s young features threatened to crumble, as he shot back, “I don’t need diapers, Dean!”  He tottered onto his bare feet, “I’m not a stupid baby.”

“Yeah?  Well, you look like a tadpole—don’t you look at me like that!  This is your fault.”

Little Sam Winchester burst into tears.

Dean’s whole head exaggerated his eye roll, “Aw, c’mon, Sammy!  Don’t start that shit.  We gotta keep it together, man.  Cas needs us.”

Sam hiccupped and wiped at his eyes, but his tears kept falling.  “Sam…Sammy, look, I’m sorry, ok.  It’s the spell that was wrong, it’s not your fault.  C’mere—”

Suddenly, Dean had an armful of little brother, sniffling into his chest and wiping snot on his favorite t-shirt.  Dean patted Sam’s back, as the six-year-old calmed down. “This is kinda weird, Sammy—we’re not wearing pants.”

They both set to digging through the limited supplies in their duffels, tying their adult boxers in big knots to secure them at their narrow waists.  Dean did the same with the hem of his t-shirt, then fixed another one of his on Sam.  There was nothing funny about their situation, but Dean snickered, nonetheless, at their adult cosplay.  The break in the mood was contagious and soon Sam was pointing at his brother and laughing out loud.  Dean liked it.  “You know, you’re right, Sam, I think the spell did work—even if it wasn’t how we thought it would.  I mean, I didn’t make my first kill ‘til I was almost thirteen and you—”

“Don’t say it.”

“Ok, fine, let’s just say you stayed innocent even longer.  There’s no way we’re carrying the power of killing that witch, or anything else.”

“Like new.”

“That’s right.  Let’s go get Cas.”

Sam nodded, his long hair bouncing.  He picked up Baby’s keys.

“Uh, Dean?  How?

 

The boys stood at the window, Sam on tip-toe, peering through the blinds into the dark lot.  “You sure about this, Sam?  I don’t like leaving the Colt behind.”

“The Colt doesn’t even fit in your hand and needs a true shot.  We can’t carry all these weapons, Dean, let alone use them.    I packed the silver knife and the skinwalker’s dagger.  Anything else we need is in the car.  We might as well make the call and start walking.”

“Hang on.” Dean packed Cas’ angel blade then balled up the trench coat and tucked it under his arm.  “Ok.”

Magicking the book into his hand, Dean hauled the bag over his shoulder, while Sam dialed the towing company.  Cars towed in on a Friday night didn’t generally get serviced until Monday, so Sam’s plan had merit.  Dean took the phone and cleared his throat, “Hello?  Yes, um, my Impala broke down just off exit twenty-three, I’ll need a tow.”  The boy’s poor imitation of a deeper voice seemed to go unnoticed, with the offer to leave cash on the car’s front seat. 

The night was chilly and the Winchesters hurried as best they could on their little bare feet, Dean dragging his brother along behind him.  At the end of the twenty-minute walk, the children were both drained and shivering in the night air, so Dean left the cash and the keys in front and they piled in back, hunkering down on the floor.  The Impala’s rug smelled of motor oil and earth—and faintly like blood.  It almost felt like hide-n-seek to Sam, if their teeth hadn’t been chattering.  “What if he sees us?”  Dean knelt and unfurled the trench coat from under his arm, scooting closer to his brother and spreading the tan material over them both.  Warmly snuggled under their angel’s coat, Sam and Dean nearly fell asleep, but then the rumbling tow-truck arrived, its headlights illuminating the car’s interior.

The driver went right for the money, thumbing through the wad and whistling happily and didn't even notice the tan lump.  At least the brothers knew where the man was, as he kept whistling the whole time he rigged up Baby.  The chains clanged, the car tilted, and the rear seat made a startled squawk, so Dean covered Sam’s mouth until they heard the driver’s truck door shut.  They both sighed with relief, when the truck lurched into gear and they started heading toward town—and Cas. 

By the time Baby was back on the ground and the roar of the tow truck left the quiet night in its wake, both boys were yawning and stretching on the back seat, too exhausted to check out their surroundings.  Dean spooned behind his little brother, again blanketing them under Cas’ coat.  Listening to Sam drift off, the hunter tried to recount the many times they’d slept in this car—first, like this, with their Dad stretched out in front and then each of them had grown up to fill their own seat. 

Baby was their bed, their restaurant—in emergencies, even their bathroom, but always their home.  Snuggling closer around his brother, Dean thought, _Why haven’t I slept in here yet with Cas?_   As the boy pulled his angel’s coat tighter around them, he had one last thought— _yet._

 

 


	19. Barbie Sneakers, Carrot Sticks--and a Killer Spoon

The people of Cedar Township had never known life without Roz.  At ninety-six, she was not only the township’s oldest citizen, but helped shape its history.  She midwifed its births, sat on its church committees and ordinance boards, managed the town library, and with her husband, co-founded its largest business—Packaging Industries.  Though all that was in the past, Roz was still active; these days the old woman ran a little thrift shop, on the corner of Main Street. 

Saturday mornings in November were not Roz’ rush hour and she sat in a low, comfortable chair (reasonably priced) behind a high counter, knitting.  The jingle bell prompted the old woman to slide her thick glasses up to her hairline and watch the door open and close, seemingly on its own.  Roz had lived a long life and seen so, so many things, but she had never seen a ghost enter her store. 

And she still hadn’t.

 “Look out, Dean.” 

The ghost bumped into a table.  “Shhhh, geez, Sammy, I told you _be_ lookout, not _tell me_ to look out.”

Slowly, a pair of tawny heads came into view.  Roz put down her knitting, but stayed out of sight.  She was familiar with all the heads belonging to mothers who needed her store to provide for them—the rest shopped at the chains in Eureka Springs or off their computers.  She didn’t know these two heads. 

“C’mon, Sam, there’s kids' clothes over here. See if those fit.”

“Those are girls’ sneakers, Dean!”

“Shhhhhhh!”

The heads grew quiet again and Roz smiled.  ‘Sam’ was definitely the younger one.  Eventually, she could here shuffling, whispering, and zippers.  Roz couldn’t help herself and chanced a peek.  The heads belonged to two young boys, one obviously the older brother, straightening the other’s ill-fitting choices, while the little guy scowled at his pink footwear.  This was rich.  Roz’ chair creaked and both boys looked up, sharply, as the old lady ducked. 

More whispering and they were on the move, but just before they made it to the door, Roz pressed a button and a deadbolt snapped shut.

Approaching one hundred meant that Roz didn’t do many things, rapidly.  She puffed and heaved and hauled herself to her feet, to find her guests in a panic—one yanking on the door, while the other searched frantically for another exit. 

“Now, boys, I want to know who you are and I want to know why you’re stealing, but what I want to know first, is—are ya hungry?”

Sam stopped wrestling with the door and looked up at the woman with big, puppy eyes.  “Yes.”

“Sam!”

“We both are, ma’am.”

Roz hobbled her way around the counter, leaning on a cane.  “Well, why didn’t you say so?  I just locked up for lunch.”

 

Behind a paisley curtain, at the back of the shop, Roz kept a kitchenette.  Sam and Dean sat at a small table on mismatched chairs, watching Roz put together sandwiches.  Sam kicked his Barbie sneakers, happily munching away on carrot sticks, while his brother’s eyes never left Roz’ back.  He fingered the tarnished silver on a nearby shelf and didn’t say a word.  Sam, however, turned into chatty Cathy.

“Sorry we tried to steal the clothes, ma’am.  The window says you don’t take credit cards and we gave all our money to a tow truck guy.”

“Shut up, Sammy,” Dean hissed.

Undaunted and apparently fueled by carrot sticks, Sam continued, “We looked in and didn’t see anyone and Dean said maybe there was a back room or something and you’d never miss the stuff.”

Dean chanced a look away from the old lady to narrow his eyes and send daggers at Sam.  “What are you doing?” Dean kept his voice low.

“I can’t see for beans, but I hear pretty good.  I could tell you two weren’t clothes-snatching cuz you wanted to be.”

She turned with two plates and placed a sandwich and chips in front of each boy.  Sam popped a chip in his mouth, as Dean watched Roz pull up a chair, with her own sandwich.  There was a pitcher of something fruity-looking and she filled their plastic cups, waving toward Dean’s lunch, “Well, dig in.”

Dean moved fast and the old lady actually jumped a little when the cold silver spoon touched her wrist—but that was all.  Sam chewed his sandwich with wide eyes, as Roz raised her eyebrows at his brother.  “If you wanna go on the attack, sonny, grab a knife next time.” She dissolved into dry laughter. 

“Dean, she’s just a nice lady.”

Dropping the spoon and picking up his sandwich, Dean admonished his brother, “Yeah and Cas was Cas.”

They ate.  Three-quarters through her meal, Roz asked, “So, who’s car did you need towed?  Did someone leave you boys in town?”

“Yeah, something like that,” Dean chimed in, “’Cept we think he’s back and we’re looking for him.”

“Is this your father, Dean?”

“Nope.  A friend.”

“Cas is our _best_ friend.  He’s missing and he’s in trouble and he needs us to find him—ow!” Sam rubbed his leg where Dean had kicked him, under the table.  “Geez, Dean.”

“Do you know where the old packaging plant is?”

Roz was gathering the dishes, but paused, “Now what do you want with that place?  It’s not anywhere you want to play.”

“But you know where it is?  Can we walk there?”

Sam carried his cup to Roz, who stood hunched at the tiny sink.  “Sure, you can, three blocks or so up that way--but there’s not much to see.”

Dean stood to go, “Hey, listen, thanks for lunch. We’ll pay for the clothes as soon as we find an ATM.”

“The bank’s nearer the highway—but now listen, you keep those, clothes, it’s chilly out and you need them.  They’re a gift.  If anyone asks, they came from Roz.”

Sam hugged the old woman around the waist, “Thanks, Roz.  You really are a nice lady.”

Outside, Sam and Dean collected the few weapons they had stashed under a hedge, tucked them into their used sweats and jeans, and headed in the direction Roz has sent them.  They passed by a strip of businesses and walked through a neighborhood, before spotting a faded sign advertising _Packaging Industries_.  Following a tree-lined driveway, they hoofed it up a steep hill and finally got a look at the place.  Or at least, where the place had been. 

Packaging Industries had burnt to the ground.


	20. We got Nothing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Can I be a tad self-indulgent and tell you all that I love this little chapter?)

“Son-of-a-bitch.”

The Winchester brothers stood dismayed and disheartened, gaping at the charred remains of Packaging Industries.  “Son. Of. A. Bitch.”

“You said that, Dean.”

“Thought _you_ said it was abandoned, Sam?”

“It was, over ten years ago.  I searched the places that went out of business and it came up as the oldest,” Sam looked up at his brother, “I should have read more, but you were real shook up, Dean--kept telling me to hurry.”

“Oh, so now this is _my_ fault?  You’re fucking unbelievable, you know that?”

Little Sam’s eyes stung, as he blinked back tears, “I’m sorry, Dean, I made a mistake.”  Big tears rolled down the younger boy’s cheeks, as he reached a hand towards his big brother, only to have it slapped away—hard.

“Son-of-a-bitch!  We got nothing, now!” Dean picked up a scrap of cement and hurled it.  “We got nothing!”  Picking up more debris, the kid pitched chunk after chunk at their scorched surroundings, swearing and kicking at the dirt.  Sam stepped back, while Dean threw his tantrum, sobbing while he watched him.  As the young hunter vented out his fury, despondence took over, curses becoming lament.  “We got nothing, Sam,” he repeated, panting, “Nothing.”

At that, Dean broke, weeping like the ten-year-old he’d become.  He sat in the dirt, as his legs folded, crying into his dusty hands.  Sam came and sat beside his brother a moment, then leaned into him, “I want to find Cas, too, Dean.”

They cried it out together a few more minutes, before Dean wiped his smudged face with his sleeve, then turned and did the same for his brother, “I know, Sammy.  Sorry, bud, it’s not your fault—it’s that bitch.”

“You sound funny now, when you swear.”  Dean was glad to see a small smile. “We’ll go back to the car and hotspot your iPad—the phones should be charged by now.”

Sam sniffled and nodded, “K, Dean.  I’ll look again.  We’ll find Cas if we gotta check all the empty places in town.”

Dean nodded too and looked out across the lot.  He flung another piece of cement with finality and it pinged loudly off a metal pipe.

Dean was suddenly on his feet, dusting the sooty mess off his jeans, then hauling Sam up by his arm.  “C’mon, I got an idea—but when I tell you about it, you’re gonna make that face.”

“What face?”

“The one that looks like you’ve been violated by perverted monkeys.”

“Jerk.”

“Bitch.”


	21. Are you Cas?

“Did you really use that line?”  Sam’s forehead did the washboard, “Of course you used that line.”

Dean smirked at his reddening brother—go, perverted monkeys, go.

“Cas’ phone’s in her pants pocket, Sam, I felt it.”

“How do you know she didn’t change them?  How do we even know she still looks like Cas?”

“We don’t, Sam.”  They reached the lot behind the closed garage and Dean dragged Baby’s door open, with two hands.  “But you got a better lead?”

Sam had to admit he didn’t, as he climbed onto the bench seat and retrieved his tablet from their bag.  Using the signal from his phone, he soon he had pulled up a list of buildings for rent or sale, though manipulating the screen with his mini fingers took some getting used to.  Meanwhile, Dean opened a GPS tracker app on his own phone and prayed Cas’ had his Location on. 

“Got it,” the boys said in unison.

Sam clumsily turned the iPad around and showed his brother six business rental listings.  Some were hard to discern, but at least two had been restaurants and one a car dealership; all of which featured plate-glass windows.  The last listing advertised a loading bay, but the picture only showed a single, boarded-up door and some ventilation grates.

“It was a poultry plant until the Board of Health shut it down—there’s a link to an article that claimed it was filthy.”

Dean held up his phone and pointed to the flashing yellow dot on the street map.  “Yahtzee.”

 

For the first time in her life, she needed a shave.  It had been days since the last ritual and while she had gained the invaluable shackles, Irini had obtained but a trace amount of supernatural power from the defunct hunter.  The once immortal queen was fighting a slippery slope; hungry, thirsty, tired—over and over again.  Besides the whiskers, Cas’ angelic face still looked angelic, but inside, Irini was aging.  Sleeping in squalor was not the queen’s style and although she had bought a cot, the drafty warehouse was getting the better of her body—of Cas’ body.  There were aches and pains and she slept a lot.  Irini was getting too old for this shit.

There had been no sign of the Winchesters and the angel just stared.  He didn’t even react when she reached over the flames and poked him with a broom handle.  Quite frankly, he was creeping her out.  The lure of a bed, a shower—and _a bathroom_ combined with the wad of cash from the Gas n’ Sip finally overrode her fear of the Winchesters miraculously finding their angel.  For all she knew, they were back at their bunker, trying to unlock the secrets of Theodora’s book—fat chance, without the witch’s magic, the book could be downright dangerous.

Irini stood and stretched Cas’ stiff frame, Francis’ husky top hanging loosely around it.  Sliding on the bulky coat, she decided she’d have to get some new clothes, if she wanted to go to the ball.  “Well, angel, I hate to leave early, but my coach is ready to turn into a pumpkin.”  She hadn’t expected a response, so just stood there grinning at her reference to her own fairy tale.  “I always liked the bit they added about the mice, but Theodora cursed those Grimm brothers with Nazis for making her a fairy godmother.”

Cas stared into the flames. 

“Ok, then.  You enjoy the view—I’m going to go use a toilet— _a toilet_.”

 

Sam and Dean’s progress was slow.  While they had packed light from the motel, the boys were now loaded up with weapons—many of them heavy silver.  Knives, bullets, even crosses made of silver weighed down the bag on Dean’s shoulder and caused Sam to walk hunched forward to balance his backpack.  Sure, they may have overpacked, but then again, they were off to face a monster and save their angel--both on a height budget.  Dean thought he had lucked out finding a pretty cool pair of boots at the thrift store, but the dry leather was stiff and unforgiving on his feet.  Sam was fairing much better in his chick kicks, but his little legs still had to work hard to keep up with Dean.  They stopped to rest more than once—Dean could have sworn there was a rock in his boot—and both times, Sam had to pee.  The whole time, Dean kept an eye on the yellow dot, checking the phone to make sure it was still blinking away, at the far end of Main Street.  They reached Roz’, but the sign on the door was slid to _closed._  

“Huh,” Dean said, “It says she’s open ‘til five—and the lights are on.”

“Maybe she’s in the kitchen, see if the door’s locked.”

But the door swung open and the little bell chimed cheerily, despite the sign.  “Roz?”  Sam put down his backpack as he went in first and headed toward the back, calling the old woman.  But a _clunk_ then Dean’s voice stopped him.  “Sammy! Here!”  Dean stood next to his duffel, peering over the counter.  He helped his brother step up on the bag, then steadied him when he saw what he saw.  Roz sat slouched, in the comfy, low chair, her neck at an unnatural angle.  Her glasses were crooked and her eyes blank.  “Shit.”

“Oh no!” Dean was ready for Sam’s predictable water works—he felt like crying himself, but gave his brother attention, instead.  “She was a nice, lady, huh, Sam?  She didn’t deserve this.”

“She’s dead ‘cuz of us, Dean!” Sam sobbed on his brother’s chest.  “Shhh, c’mon, Sammy, this sucks, but we gotta get outta here.”

Choking back his tears, Sam nodded and dried his eyes.  They collected their bags and made their way to the back of the shop.  “Hope she’s got a back door.”

 

Refreshed from the hotel, Irini stashed her stolen Corolla at the opposite end of Main Street.  Walking past the small shops, she couldn’t wait to leave this little township—the queen was a city mouse, used to bright lights and magnates.  Leaving the monarchy behind for the New World, Irini had made it her ambition to always _be_ somebody.  Who was she now?  She stopped to consider her reflection in a store window.  Sure, she looked like the body that an angel inhabited, but despite her plan, was still far from the real thing.  As she turned Cas’ face side to side, it occurred to Irini that she hadn’t been herself for hundreds of years.  Under the Alpha’s spell, she had always changed her appearance at will—but seldom returned to her own skin.  Over the years, she had stopped altogether and now, she stood here, gazing at the skin she was in and trying to remember what she looked like.  Huh.  A jingle bell startled her, as a door opened and a wrinkled face popped out.  “Ya gonna stand there and admire yourself all day, sonny, or are ya gonna come inside and get some clothes that fit ya?”

Finding a tailored white button-down and a dark blazer, Irini pulled out Cas’ wallet to pay the likable lady.  “Oh, that’s Sam and Dean!” Roz lowered her glasses and smiled warmly, “Are you Cas?”

Irini froze.  She pulled out the faded photograph and held it close to old eyes.  “You mean you’ve seen _these_ boys?  When?”

“Oh, they were here this noontime.  Dean said you left them but the little guy seemed to think you were in trouble.  Hey, listen—they’re looking for you—”

 “WHERE DID THEY GO?”

“You don’t have to shout…now, let’s see…first, I got them fed, then they mentioned needing an ATM.”

 Cas’ palms slammed on the counter.  “Where. Are. They?”

Roz folded her arms across her sunken chest and narrowed her eyes, “Now, mister—I don’t think you’re who you say you are.”

Irini wrapped Cas’ hands around the old throat.

“I get that a lot.”


	22. The King would be Mortified

“Why are we stopping here, Dean?”  Sam slid his heavy backpack off without waiting for an answer.  The straps had dug into his shoulders and he winced as he rubbed them.

“Because she hasn’t moved.  Sam, you said it, the ‘walker killed Roz because somehow she found out the old lady saw us—she knows we’re coming.”

“But does she know we’re kids, Dean?  How would she?”

“I don’t know, maybe Roz used our names.   She’s a thing that can become anyone, I don’t think she’d have a hard time believing we’ve changed.”

“If she’s waiting for us, what’re we gonna do?”

Dean uttered the word and produced the book, thrusting it into Sam’s hands.

“We’re gonna fool her ass.”

 

Irini stood near the boarded door, watching the alley through its cracks.  She didn’t know whether she was waiting for full-sized hunters or to expect the youthful faces in the wallet photo—but she knew the Winchesters had used her book.  They were looking for their angel, just as she’d planned, and so her book would be coming back to her soon—and hopefully her knife, too.  The blade had no magical value, but was an extremely old and very sentimental gift.  It miffed the queen that after hundreds of years, she had lost it to a man tied to a bed.  The king would be mortified.

She nearly jumped out of her borrowed skin as something hard struck the door in front of her.  Irini leapt back and crouched in the shadows, clouds of dust settling on her newly-acquired clothes.  Another loud crack left the door’s bent frame vibrating.  She aimed Francis’ gun through the swirling dust and waited.  But nothing happened.  Slowly, the queen crept out of her corner and slid aside the doorway, peeking through the slats.  A boy stood there, _smiling at her_.  Inches from her eye, another loud something hit the door—and Irini fired the gun twice.  She retreated against a far wall, alarmed.  It was just a kid, what was she thinking?  Shit, it was one of _the_ kids.  Shit, she needed them both alive.

Irini looked back into the darkness.  There was the fire with its captive angel, still looking vegetative.  She returned to the door and peered out, from a safe distance.  Nothing.  Hunters were hard to kill, she had been told once—she hadn’t found that the case until most recently—but was relieved for it now.  The next bang on the door didn’t startle her as much, as she was waiting for it.  Wrenching the warped hinges, what looked like a dust-covered, gun-wielding Castiel charged out the door to see—nothing.  From down the alley, came a giggle.  As Irini pursued the noise, another came from behind her, echoing from around a corner.   Pausing, she turned in her loose shoes and started in its direction—then a rock collided with the back of Cas’ dark hair and sent her after the original sound, now laughing wildly.  As she reached the end of the alley, the dusty, frazzled queen pocketed her weapon, as there were townsfolk about, being townsfolk.  She dusted off her dark suit, then scanned the street, the buildings, a parking area and the playground, beyond it.  There, swinging happily, was one of the boys from the wallet photo—Sam, she figured, from his long hair.  Gotcha.

 

Sam handed Dean his backpack and climbed ten fingers onto the loading ramp.  Dean heaved the bags to Sam, then scrambled up beside his brother.  The bay door was large, solid, and covered in graffiti.  Dean dug in his bag and came up with a crowbar, while Sam attempted to pick the rusted lock.  Dean tried several places to get some leverage under the door, but it was tightly sealed.  “Shit, any luck, Sammy?”

Sam shook his head, “It’s rusted solid.”

“Stand back.”

Dean swung the crow bar at the lock several times, but it only bent.  “Looks like we’re gonna have to climb.”  Both boys stood looking up at the row of vents near the top of the door—one was hanging by a screw.  The crates lying around were all broken, but if they stacked them inside each other, they might just hold enough weight.  Dean crouched and Sam hopped onto his back, carefully climbing onto his brother’s shoulders, holding the wall for balance.  Dean stole a moment to smirk at Barbie before she stepped on top of his head and Sam called down, “Got it!”  The sneaker pushed off Dean’s crown and he looked up to see his brother disappear under the loose vent grill.  “It’s a duct, come on up,” came echoing out the opening.  Dean climbed the crates three times—twice to pass up the bags, almost toppling from the weight, and lastly to jump several times, before catching the lip of the opening, with his fingertips.  By the time Dean was in the air duct, he collapsed panting on his back.  His heaves turned to dry hacking, as he inhaled the moldy old feather dust.  The space echoed with his coughs and a few from Sam, too. 

Collecting themselves, the boys made their way down the passage, until they came to the inside of another vent cover.  Dean kicked with both feet, until it gave and they could slide out the conduit and fall with their heavy bags a number of feet to the cement floor—hard.  The brothers both got banged up, but each tried to bolster the other, checking their scrapes and deeming them “no big deal.”  Sam didn’t even cry.  They had work to do, before the skinwalker returned.  The bags finally got lighter, as they loaded their pockets with weapons and made their way through the dark, stumbling on debris and feeling their way along—until they turned a corner into a glowing light.  They had to squint at first, against the sudden brightness, but then their eyes opened wide.

“Cas.”


	23. Come Back

Cas hurt.  He had felt this kind of pain before, punished for disobeying Heaven’s plan—but for never this long.  This was cruel.  The angel was locked in an endless inward struggle, his grace stifled nearly to suffocation.  Something so immensely powerful was not created to be fettered or oppressed and it constantly resisted its besiege.  And it hurt.   

So arduous the battle within, that outwardly Cas seemed but an empty shell.  His vessel breathed automatically, but it ceased reacting to the cold underneath or the heat all around.  Focused innermost, his unseeing eyes didn’t even blink. 

“Cas!  Cas!  It’s us!  C’mon, wake up!”

Sam and Dean tried in vane to get a reaction of any kind from their friend, but Cas stared past them, through the fire. 

Sam looked up at his brother, fire reflecting in his damp eyes, “Is he…dead?”

“No!  No, Sammy, he’s in there, I talked to him.  He’s just restrained—” Dean closed his eyes and remembered the dream walk, “Bound, Sam, his grace is bound.”

“Well, how do we get him out?”

Dean started searching the room, “First off, we _put_ him out.”

Lifting a flat, slat of packing crate, Dean approached the fire and tried to snuff the flames, but it wasn’t wide enough.  Sam helped find a few more boards and they tried laying them side-by side, but the blessed fire licked through the cracks and rose high.  “We need something bigger, so it’ll cover a whole section, then maybe we can pull him out.”

“Hey, like this?”  Dean was yanking at the top of a long, wooden carton.  Sam dug out the crow bar and together they pried the lid open—then both fell back at the familiar smell of death.  Holding their collars over their faces, the Winchesters took in the grisly sight of the hunter—and his daughter—their remains packed into the crate like so much raw chicken. 

Jimmying off the rest of the wide, flat lid, Dean paused to watch Sam, who still stared at the bodies. “She was my age, Dean.”

“We’re not gonna be like this, forever.  Once we get Cas and get back to the bunker, we’ll figure it out, Sammy.”  Dean slid his arm around his brother and led him away from the Fellers’ coffin, handing him one end of the board.  Counting to three, they let go and smothered nearly half the ring of fire, all at once.  Instantly, they were across and beside their friend, “Cas!  Cas!” Dean brushed his angel’s hair off his damp forehead and peered into his distant eyes. 

Squinting closely at the irons, Sam said,“Dean, these are Enochian.”

“Can you translate it?”

“I don’t need to, I can pronounce it.  _VIN NONCA ASPT POAMAL DE Z_ _”_

The glowing words on the collar began to darken, like a Broadway marquee—except right to left.  Cas didn’t move.

“ _ODO DA_ _COAZIOR LONSA VPAAH—TORGV!_ ”

The rest of the script darkened and the collar opened, with an audible clink.  The cuffs released and fell to the floor.  Cas didn’t move.

 “ _TORGV!  TORGV!_   It means get up, Dean.  I don’t know what’s wrong.”

Cas didn’t move.

The brothers each grabbed a shoulder and shook their friend, “Cas!  C’mon, wake up!”

Cas moved. 

The angel’s flaccid body slumped further and fell onto his side, with a thud against the hard floor.  Dean grabbed Cas’ arm and tugged hard to keep him away from the fire.  “Grab him, Sam, we gotta get him safe.”

Sam and Dean Winchester were big men, topping the height charts at six-four and six-one, respectively.  They were used to using their size for intimidation, leverage, and besting humans and monsters alike.  At less than four feet, Sam was struggling to inch Cas’ large frame along, despite his taller brother’s help.  The boys dragged the angel out of the flames by his arms, digging in their heels and heaving together.  When he was finally clear, they sat, panting and coughing.  Castiel lay between them, face down in the dust.

Sam patted Cas’ back, “Torgv, Cas, torgv.”

“Yeah, torge,” Dean mispronounced, his voice thick.  He cradled the dark head on his lap, “C’mon, angel.  Come back.” 

Dean called the book into existence, tossing it down in the dust. “Maybe there’s something in there.”

 “I don’t know, Dean.  You think she might’ve really hurt him?”

But the young hunter didn’t answer, as a familiar hand clasped itself over his mouth and he was dragged onto his feet.

As the book disappeared into its free hand, the thing that was _most definitely not Cas_ said, “Of course I hurt him, _a little_ , but you boys—you _little_ boys—I’m gonna hurt you a lot.”


	24. Something Important

Irini approached the park from the far side, hoping to surprise the boy.  She had him in her sight until she flanked the row of hedges, along the back of the parking lot, ducking low, so as not to spook him.  But when she swung around the border, gun ready at her hip, the park was empty and the swings hung motionless.  Knowing the child couldn’t have gotten far, she headed for the only obvious shelter, the public restrooms, a long, narrow structure.  Gun first, she kicked in the doors and charged through each of them.  Finding the girls’ and boys’ room both empty, she laughed a bit to herself.  What were these tiny humans going to do?  The Winchesters were in children’s bodies now, she wasn’t exactly sure how, but the book seemed most likely to blame.  The hunter’s little girl had been an easy mark, how much more trouble could these two be?  Just then, she found out. 

The boy from the swing burst out of the first doorway she had checked and darted behind the building.  As Irini took off after him, the older boy, from the alley, sprinted out the other side, toward the parking lot.  She changed directions and pursued the closer boy, only to catch sight of the little one again, headed back towards the swings.  Irini was tiring fast.  She opted to stay on the heels of the older boy, though he had turned the corner of the lot and was nearly out of sight.  As the skinwalker panted around the bend, she jogged to a stop—the boy had disappeared.  Ahead were a few businesses abutting each other and across the street lay the ally and the plant.  She glanced the other way, expecting to see the empty lot—but there he stood, smiling and waving, just as he had outside the boarded-up door.  Irini took aim “Stay right there!” She stepped closer to the boy, almost surprised when he didn’t run.  “I’m done playing your games,” she waved the gun toward the park, “Call your brother.”  But as she bore down on the young hunter with the gun, he inexplicably continued to smile and wave.  Then, Irini was in reach and made to shake some sense into the grinning idiot—but the _avoidance illusion_ evaporated in her hand. 

 

Dean didn’t know what startled him more—being caught, losing the book, or looking at _two Castiels_.  All the boy had thought about for the past days was finding his angel and now he had him—in excess.  Dean heard Sam shout his name, then the smaller boy took cover in the shadows.  So much bigger and stronger than Dean, the thing in Cas’ skin wrestled him to the floor, pinning him down with its weight.  “Listen, bitch,” the thing raised Cas’ brow, “That’s right, I know who you are—or at least _what_ you are—and you’re _not_ an angel, you’ll never be an angel—or a witch, either.  You’re just a woman who steals people’s sk—”

Again, the hand slapped over Dean’s mouth and the young hunter acted fast, pulling the silver blade from his pocket and plunging it into the monster’s shoulder.  She screeched and drew back, the wound sizzling and emitting a noxious smoke.  She tried to grab the knife, but it was solid silver, right down to its handle and she pulled her singed hand back fast.  Meanwhile, Dean had two more silver weapons in his hands and stood protectively over the real Castiel, ready to fight.  Her shoulder wound continued to blister, so the skinwalker wrapped her burnt hand in her jacket, clutched the offending metal, and yanked it out—with a cry of pain that sounded nothing like Cas.  Dean lunged at her, but the thing dodged and flung him into a wall, where she again pinned him, pounding a fist against his narrow wrists to disarm him.  She drew back the fist and slammed it into his young face.  Dean saw stars, his nose bloodied.

 

Castiel was cold.  Away from the holy fire, the icy floor chilled his limbs.  His vessel longed to shiver, to curl up, to recoil—but it was disconnected, distant.  From this distance, the cold was not as bitter.  From this distance, the unrest was restful.  From this distance, the sharp pain was a dull ache, barely there.  Cas was so far away from _everything_ , he lay there, an island in a sea of things.  Some of the things were moving and most of them were making noise.  But their movements didn’t seem to matter, they being so far away and the sounds were just that—sounds, echoes of things unreachable.  Yet, one sound kept happening over and over and it seemed it might be important for a moment, but then it stopped and other sounds took its place.  Still, it seemed he should know what it meant.  “Cas.”  Something thought he should hear it.  Yes.  Something _needed_ him to hear it.  Maybe it wasn’t the sound—maybe it was _the something_ that seemed important. 

 

 Dean felt Cas’ fist hit him a second time and watched it draw back to do it again but the skinwalker crumpled instead, clutching its leg with another cry of pain.  Standing by the wounded knee, Sam produced a second silver weapon and raised it to sink in beside the first, but the thing used Cas’ strong arm to fling his small body into a corner.  “Sammy!” Dean stared at his brother’s still frame, then lunged again, but the monster kneeled on its good knee and slammed the boy back against the wall.  Enraged, it endured the scorching of the short knife in its kneecap and staggered to its feet, dragging Dean up the wall by his sweatshirt.  Dean stared into eyes that could have belonged to his angel.  He sobbed, “...Cas.”

 “ _I…am_ ,” The skinwalker punched the boy’s already swollen cheek, “ _done…playing_ ,” she hit him again and through his tears, Dean saw swirling light—“ _with…little…boys_.”  Dean squeezed his eyes shut, ready for the next blow—but instead, radiant light shone straight through his lids.  The vice grip on his shirt released and the boy slid down the wall and shielded his eyes.  “No!” he heard Cas’ voice boom, but too close—that was the impostor.  Dean squinted and peeked between his forearms, and there he stood—Castiel, angel of the Lord, emitting brilliant light and casting glorious winged shadows, his eyes shining luminous blue—and naked as a jaybird.


	25. Oh, the Irini

The dazzling light dimmed in a great cloud of smoke.  Irini was gone—and so were the Enochian shackles.  Dean felt Cas’ hands on him again—gently now, as they cupped his swollen cheeks.  A softer glow shone and faded, taking the pain of the boy’s broken face with it.  Dean touched his healed skin as he watched Cas kneel and apply the glow to his little brother, who stirred and sat up, considering the angel.  “Cas, you’re naked!”

“I am, Sam—the skinwalker took all of my— _oof!_ ” Sam threw his short arms around his friend and Dean joined him, hugging Cas with all his strength.  “I missed you so much, angel.”

“Hello, Dean.  I missed you too—it was very lonely where I was.”  Cas drew back and looked at both the hunters, “I see you’ve gone to measures to find me,” Cas’ blue eyes sparked slightly, as he narrowed them on young Dean, “I thought I told you to run.”

“You know me better than that, Cas—you know both of us.  Since when do Winchesters leave their family behind?”  Dean rummaged in his duffel and pulled out the trench coat.  Handing it over, Dean smirked, “As much as I love that look on you, there’s young eyes around.”

“Dean!”  Sam tossed on his backpack and scrunched his little face, “You’re a kid too, in case you forgot.”

Cas donned the coat, buttoning the front, “And I want to hear exactly how this happened, but now we need to leave this place, before Irini returns.  Not all her magic is smoke and mirrors—she has the Alpha Book.”

“Isn’t it Irinic?”  Dean smirked and Sam scowled at him.

“Come,” Cas gathered the boys up in his arms and the three were instantly in the back seat of the Impala.  “You both stay right here,” Cas touched a finger to the tip of Dean’s freckled nose, “I mean it.”

Before Dean could answer, Cas was gone.  “Is it me, or is he treating us like we’re actual kids?”

Sam opened his mouth, but Cas reappeared behind the wheel, fully clothed in his familiar tax accountant wear, the brothers’ bags from the motel at their feet.  As he started the car, Cas adjusted the rearview to make eye contact with his passengers.  “Seatbelts, both of you.”  There was some grumbling and at least one set of folded arms, but seatbelt buckles clicked and the trio headed off, away from the township and Arkansas.

The brothers filled the angel in on their last few days, their experience with Not Cas, and their use of the magic book.   Cas explained, “You misread the spell to mean ‘like new’ when it actually stated ‘like birth’—you are fortunate that you didn’t have the power to conduct the original spell—you ended up as children instead of infants.”  Sam sighed and slouched in his seat, “ _Like birth_ , I shoulda known.  But it did get rid of the supernatural trace—I mean, we think it did.” 

Cas nodded, “Most likely, yes.  But now we have another problem.  If Irini can reach the right witch before we do, she’ll have all the power of the spells of Eve.”

“Told ya we need Rowena, Dean.”

Rolling his eyes, Dean quipped, “Oh, the Irini.”

“She’s got the book and the angel shackles, Dean—I don’t think this is funny.”

Cas listened to the Winchesters bicker, like—well, like children.

After more highway miles, Dean asked, “Are we going home, Cas?  She’s been to the bunker and knows how to get in.”

“We will stay closer to Lawrence, Dean, but you’re right, the bunker itself is too dangerous.”

“Hey, what’ya doing with my phone, Bitch?”

“Turning off the GPS, so she can’t find us like we found her— _Jerk_.”

“Fine, you didn’t have to grab it like that.”

“You were just playing a stupid game, Dean.”

“ _Enough_.”  The no-nonsense tone of Cas’ voice cut through their squabbling.  “Samuel was right, Dean—we need a powerful witch like Rowena, sooner than later.  You are both getting younger by the hour.”

“What?”  Dean snatched back his phone from his little brother’s grip, “What are you talking about?  I’m about ten and Sam’s been six since the spell.”

“You’ve _looked_ ten and six, but the longer you stay under the spell’s power, the more childlike you are becoming.  I have listened to you argue and call names over the smallest disagreement.  And Sam, am I wrong in assuming you need to empty your bladder?”

Sam blushed, as he realized he’d been squirming on the seat.  Dean pulled away from him, best he could, confined by his seat belt.  “Ewww, pull over before he wets himself!”

Cas waited by the car, as both boys stole off into the bushes to pee, Dean going only at the angel’s insistence.  “Do you think he’s right, Sam?  Are we acting like kids?”  Sam finished and righted his clothing, “I don’t know, Dean.  I mean, when Irini— _don’t say it again_ —when Irini grabbed you, I ran and hid at first.  I took my chance to attack later, but when she showed up—I was _scared_ —that’s why I ran.”  Sam looked down at his pink feet, “I’m really sorry, Dean.  I should have fought her.”

Dean put an arm around Sam’s shoulders and led him out of the brush, “That’s ok, Sammy, you acted when it counted most.  I was scared, too and when she hit me—” Dean looked away, “I cried.”

Sam looked at his big brother in awe, sure he hadn’t seen him cry from pain since they really were kids—and that had been at the end of their father’s belt and not from any injury from a monster.  “She looked like Cas, Dean—I’d cry too if my boy—if my friend hit me.”

The brothers climbed back into the back seat and buckled up, without being told.  Another hour and Cas looked back at the quiet boys, who were snuggled up against each other, asleep; Sam’s head in his brother’s lap and Dean’s resting on his shoulder.  Cas pulled off the next exit, the Kansas town advertising lodging and food.  The back door creaked open and Cas gently shook the boys awake.  “Sam, Dean, we’re going to stay here tonight.  You both need your rest.”

Dean disentangled himself from his brother and unclipped their belts, but Sam was slow to rouse.  His eyes heavily lidded, he lay back down on the seat.  Cas scooped Sam up and carried him against his chest, while the boy dozed on the angel’s shoulder.  Inside the room, Cas laid Sam’s small frame on the bed and turned to Dean, “Please watch your brother, while I get you something to eat.”

“Y-you’re gonna leave us, Cas?  Alone?”

“I will not be long, Dean.  Sam is too tired to take to a restaurant and besides,” Cas waved his hand at the door and a series of sigils burned across the wood, “You will be protected.”  Another wave and the only window glowed with the same symbols.

Dean nodded at the marks, “Cas, can I tell you something?”

“Of course, Dean,” Cas sat on the end of the bed, face to face with the much shorter hunter.  Dean took a deep breathe, clenching his fists nervously.  His words came tumbling out, “I’m scared, Cas.  I’m scared she’s gonna find us, I’m scared she’s gonna take you _again_ , and I’m scared we’re gonna be stuck like this!”

By the time Dean was done with his uncomfortable confession, he was horrified to find his eyes stinging with tears.  He looked away from the angel, wiping at his face. Cas reached out and gathered the crying boy to his chest.

Wrapped in Cas’ big arms, Dean sniffled into the tan coat, lamenting, “This sucks, Cas.”

Cas swayed the boy gently and stroked his head, “Shhh, Dean.  I know, it does suck.  But we’ve faced worse.  This all just seems so very big because you are so very small.  You and your brother would be foolish to not fear the monsters you hunt, but you hunt them anyway.  It’s ok to be afraid, I’m here and I won’t let anything happen to you or Sam.”

They stayed like that a while, until Dean’s tears had dried and he relaxed against his angel.

“Missed you so much.  I was scared I’d lost you.”

“I was a very long way from you, Dean—but you should know, I’ll always come when you call.”

 

 


	26. HOW I want, WHEN I want

The Caribbean sun shown hot across the ridiculously wide-brimmed woven hat, casting a full shadow over the witch’s petite frame.  Rowena was shopping—again—with conjured credit and a high-profile alias to boot.  This week she was Olivia Marcus, a New York fashion designer, vacationing near the equator.  The witch had enjoyed the good life for some time, keeping her nose clean of The Grand Coven, her kingly son—and the confounded Winchesters. 

So, she lacked the Book of the Damned codex—it would turn up and when it did, Theodora’s lost little lambs would flock to her power.  At least that was the plan.  The members of her ex-coven hadn’t exactly warmed up to the redhead before, even with the power of the book, but then again, they still had their Alpha then—and _her book_.  The Alpha book and The Book of the Damned contained the oldest, most powerful spells in existence—and The Alpha book was missing.  Which witch was the witch which pinched it?  Rowena smiled at her silly joke, crimson lipstick glistening in the sunlight.  It was only a matter of time before the book’s power showed itself—and the inadequacy of its owner.  Weak witches make bad magic and bad magic has a way of showing up on the nightly news—or at the very least, on a hunter’s radar.  Sam Winchester had changed his mind about something, with his hung-up phone call.  If Theodora’s book reared its head, it would be a Winchester that sat up and took notice. 

Swinging her bags of expensive clothes, Rowena walked the tourist district, her eyes rolling back behind her sun glasses, as she projected herself toward the Impala—and her cleverly-placed hex bag.  She knew from experience, the brothers would be in the motel nearby and searched the rooms, until she found—nothing.  Two couples watching TV, a business man on his phone, furiously trying to close a deal, various people eating, an old man masturbating, and two sleeping children.  Huh, the Winchesters leaving their precious Impala behind was news in of itself, but not much help to her.  She drew away from the dingy surroundings and plunged back into her own body, when suddenly, standing on a sidewalk in Aruba, Rowena Macleod was summoned.

The witch felt the world twist and was pulled apart, then suddenly whole again, standing in yet another motel and facing—Castiel?  The angel was looking rough.  Rowena took off her hat and sunglasses, brushing her bright hair back—and felt the pull of the binding tether.  Shit—fleeing was not an option.

“Whut d’ye want, then?  Lose ye coat?”

She watched Cas straighten his suit jacket, dried blood stiff on its shoulder.  He cleared his throat, “Hello, Rowena, the bitchiest witch in the West.”

“Oh my, Castiel, aren’t we colorful tonight.  But ye still haven’t said—whut d’ye want with me, then?”

When the angel rose to his feet, Rowena saw the bloody material tied tightly around his leg—and his pronounced limp.  “Run into the wrong end o’ an angel blade, Cas?”

He spoke in ancient Altonian and The Alpha book appeared.  Rowena’s heavy eyeliner widened and she reached out involuntarily toward the powerful object.  Cas pulled it away, holding it up out of her reach, “Uh-uh-uh, little witch.  You shouldn’t touch things that don’t belong to you.  This is mine.  Do you understand?  _Mine_.  But—if you’re a good girl, I might let you use it.”

“ _You’re_ gunna let me use one of the most powerful spell books in the world?  I’m sure there’s an enormous catch involved, angel—so again—whut d’ye want with me?”

“Simple, Rowena, I want to use you.  I want your magic to work this book, _how_ I want, _when_ I want and when you’ve done _everything_ I’ve told you and I don’t need you anymore, you _might_ get the book for yourself.”

“Mmm, Castiel, I have to say I like this BAMF version much better than the whiny model,” Rowena mocked the angel, deepening her voice, “ _Don’t hurt Sam and Dean_.” 

“Funny you should mention them,” Cas thrust the book forward, “That’s the first thing you will do for me—find Sam and Dean Winchester.”

Rowena took the volume reverently and opened its cover.  “Whatever you say, but—Irini Boran, _you are not_ Castiel.”


	27. Radiant Soul

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: FLOOF

Sam and Dean Winchester sat at the small motel table, munching on their burgers and fries.  Sam kicked his short legs, as he sipped his shake, slurping the straw loudly and giggling when his brother did the same.  Both boys had been so hungry when Cas woke them from their nap, that they dove into their meals, thanking the angel through mouthfuls.  Sam reached into the bag and produced a small plastic pouch, turning it in his hand to see the contents.  “Cool, I got a car—what did you get, Dean?”  The older boy examined his toy with less interest, “It’s a truck—here, you can have it, Sammy.”  Soon, there were small plastic vehicles with cartoon faces driving among the french fries and popping wheelies up the sides of their drink cups.  Sam made vroom-vroom noises as he played and Dean watched him affectionately, wondering when he’d realize what he was doing.  “What?”  Sam stopped, noticing his brother’s smirk, “It’s fun, Dean.  After today, don’t you want to have some fun?”

Dean sighed and inwardly called himself an ass. He made the little brown truck jump Sam’s half-eaten burger and skid it to a stop, with a screeching sound.  Sam laughed his little shaggy head off.

Cas sat on the bed and watched his charges eat and play.  It had been a surprise back at the warehouse to see the Winchesters in this diminutive form, but he knew them both, immediately.  Cas would know Dean in any form, any shape, wearing any face, because when Castiel looked at Dean, he saw his brilliant soul.  That very same bright soul had led him through Hell, straight to the Righteous Man, where Cas saw past Dean’s tortured spirit and straight to his nature.  It was still the first thing he saw when he looked at the hunter, sometimes distracting in its clarity.

Now the radiant soul shone from this small, vulnerable body, spurring Cas’ protectiveness in a way he had never quite felt.  He had promised Dean no harm would befall him or his brother and he had meant it.  Returning with the take-out, the angel found both boys asleep, Dean curled around his smaller brother and snoring softly against the pillow—and Cas made the same promise to himself.  He reached for his phone, but remembered it was gone, so he used Dean’s to snap a quick picture of the scene.  Dean stirred at the phone’s click and Cas caught his attention waving the delicious-smelling bag, while hiding the phone. 

After they finished, Cas cleaned up their trash, while the boys continued to play with their little toys, Dean making exaggerated car noises, just to hear his brother giggle.  “Time to get washed up, boys, you’ve had a long day and you need a night's sleep.”

“Aw, Cas” 

Dean burst out laughing at his brother, “ _Aw, Cas_ ,” he mocked, whining in a high voice, “Can’t we stay up all night?”

“Shut up, Dean!” Sam pitched his plastic car at his brother’s head, narrowly missing his mark.

“That’s enough, now—you’re obviously both tired.”  Cas dug in a duffel and pulled out toothbrushes, paste, and their adult tees, now perfect as night shirts, “Put these on and brush.  I’ll turn down the bed.”

The boys took the items and complained all the way to the bathroom, shoving at each other as they both tried to fit through the door.  “Stop fighting or I’ll separate you.”

At the sink, Dean looked at Sam, his hair ends dipping in his toothpaste, as he brushed.  “I think Cas is taking this too far, don’t you, Sammy?  I mean, I remember everything that’s happened to us.  I remember Hell and the Apocalypse—I don’t think like a kid, why is he treating us like this?”

Sam spit and shrugged, “I don’t know, Dean, I remember that stuff too.  Maybe it’s because of how we look.”  Sam grimaced at his reflection, his mouth covered in foam.  The boy growled and shook his head like a dog.  Rolling his eyes and pasting his toothbrush, Dean said, “Yeah, sure, Sam—how we _look_.”

As Cas tucked the boys into the large bed they slid together, into the center.  Sam curled into his brother, as Cas planted a kiss on each boy’s forehead. “A little formal, don’tcha think, angel?”  But Dean only got his hair tussled for his comment.  Turning off the light, Cas checked the wards and settled in a nearby chair, intent on watching over the boys.  “Cas?” Sam spoke muffled against Dean’s chest.  “Aren’tcha coming to bed?”  Inwardly, Dean thanked his brother for being the one to ask, as the angel shed his coats and shoes and slid in next to him.   The boy quickly climbed over the man and both boys sandwiched him like cuddly bookends.  Cas wrapped an arm around each child and soon they were both snoring, Dean twitching in his sleep, disturbed by a dream.  The angel tapped his downsized partner’s furrowed brow and the dream vanished, along with the worry lines.  Cas lay on his back, the Winchesters curled up at his sides, warm and sleeping peacefully.  Somewhere, there was a monster that wanted to hurt them both.  In all his thousands of years, Castiel had never wanted anything dead so badly.


	28. Insatiable Monkey

Rowena rolled her eyes back in her skull, waving her hand over the ancient book, scattering herbs—and speaking total nonsense.  The witch didn’t need the Alpha Book to find the Winchesters, but what Irini didn’t know, wouldn’t hurt her.  Well, actually, it would hurt the former queen, eventually—as well as the hunters—but then playing both sides had always been a particular talent of Rowena’s.  She could care less which side won, as long as she ended up with the spell book. Besides, Irini’s plan to consume the grace of an angel had only been accomplished once before by a non-celestial entity and that unfortunate being had been smote by God himself, just after its inception (this was coded, in the book’s fine runes).  Again, information that the skinwalker simply didn’t need to be privy to, in Rowena’s opinion.  Binding be damned.

She knew Theodora’s queen at first sight, her Cas suit wearing thin around her; it’s filth, the wounds, its demeaner—and then she went and demanded to locate the Winchesters, killing any remaining illusion that she was their angel.  Rowena had always scoffed at the Alpha for keeping this ridiculous _pet,_ but the oldest witch seemed captivated by Irini’s appetite for luxury and stately power.  She let the queen believe her influence even lorded over magic and afforded the Alpha protection, but in reality, Theodora was simply amused by her insatiable monkey.  But now that monkey had claimed her owner’s invaluable book and Rowena was _anything_ but amused. 

As her astral body descended on the moving Impala, the redhead’s corporeal body twitched, her sequined arms shaking her translucent tether.  While her hex bag lay under the exhaust manifold, the car was heavily warded against her projection and the witch was repelled off its roof, violently.  Damn. 

“Well?”

Rowena smoothed her dress across her lithe frame and arranged her curls, before answering the rude queen.  “ _Well_ , they are travelling along the highway, somewhere in Kansas.”

“ _Somewhere_ in Kansas isn’t good enough, witch.  If you want that book, you’re going to have to do better than that.”

“The car is warded and moving—ye said find them and I did,” Rowena answered, absently, picking at her manicured nails. 

“Where are they going?  Are they headed for their bunker? Are they alone?”  Irini demanded answers, but the witch only shrugged.  “If you don’t find them, _you don’t get the book_!”  Irini grabbed the witch’s arm and shook her, incensed at her indifference.  A word in Latin and Castiel’s already wounded body was flung back, while Rowena brushed off her arm and scolded, “Tsk tsk, little queen, I feel none of Theodora’s affection toward ye and while ye may have the book—for now— _I_ have the magic.  Y’would be smart to remember who ye summoned.”

Slowly getting to her feet, Irini pointed at Rowena’s clear chain, “And who _I bound_!  You have to do my bidding, the spell said—”

“The spell was written by a natural witch and meant to be fueled by magic.  Ye may have _physically_ bound me to ye, but I’m afraid I still have m’free will.  Besides, I can’t give ye answers _I don’t know_.”

The queen was on the verge of a conniption, pacing the small motel room, dragging her aching leg, and muttering Altonian curses.  Rowena watched her with mild gratification—taking in the image of Castiel, angel of the Lord, with mussed hair in a dusty suit, limping and raving.  The witch pondered the whereabouts of the real angel, hoping he was with his Winchesters—how amusing it would be to see him come face-to-face with this spectacle.  It was like Oscar Madison in a Cas suit.

“Look at me!”  As the witch already had been, she just smiled at the wounded walker, as it continued, “I need a hunter, use the book, find one near here.  You can perform the ritual, restore my immortality.”

Rowena thumbed through the ancient pages, shaking her head, “I’m afraid immortality requires the power of an Alpha.  I can make ye stronger, less human, ye can even change again, if ye like.  But ye’ll need Theodora’s power to live forever, dearie.”

The skinwalker seethed at her words, then finally said, “Fine, then find a hunter.  To trap one, I’ll need to look better, in the meantime, I’ll need a…crummy illusion, that’s what Dean called it.”

“One crummy illusion, coming right up.”


	29. Cas in Charge

“According to the lore, de-aging spells need to be reversed, not countered.  I’m afraid we’ll need that book back, after all.”

“But you can’t go near her, Cas.  If she gets the jump on you again, you’ll wind up back in angel chains.  Me and Sam gotta get the book.”  Dean shared this information from in front of the motel TV, where he and his brother were glued to a pirate movie.  They had been watching the series all day, Cas gladly ordering the pay-per-view when the boys grew bored with research and frequently interrupted his work.  After a night’s sleep, the brothers had risen with boundless energy, playing tag in the narrow space of their room, vaulting the furniture and rough housing to determine the winner.  Had Cas been human, he’d have grown hoarse from scolding, lecturing, and finally yelling at his charges.  Young Sam and Dean Winchester were holy terrors.

Cas turned from the laptop and confronted the older terror, “That’s not going to happen, Dean.  You are both vulnerable, in this state, and I will not allow you to put yourself in that kind of danger.”

Munching on potato chips, Dean answered, “Like I said, it’d be dangerous for you, too.  We might be small, Cas, but we’re still hunters and we know what we’re doing.  We just need a plan.”

Sam nudged his brother, “Sshh, Dean—they’re releasing the Kraken.”

Cas’ chair scraped the floor, as the angel stood, strode toward the children, and unceremoniously switched off the TV.

“Hey!” He’d gained their full attention.

“Both of you, listen to me.  You will not attempt to confront Irini on your own or together.  She needs your blood— _she wants you dead_.  Neither of you has the strength nor the maturity to best her.  I want to be sure you are both clear on this.”

Sam nodded, potato crumbs falling from his chin, but Dean rose to his knees.  “You know, Cas, we’ve always been a team, always did better when we worked together— _Team Free Will_ —remember that?  Well, you’re breaking up the band with this ‘Cas in Charge’ bullshit.”

“Dean, you are a--.”

“I’m _not_ a child.”

“You _are_ a ten-year-old child, like it or not.  You don’t yet see it, but you act as a child and so I treat you as one.  If you continue with this belligerence you will find that I can also treat you as a belligerent child.”

“Cas, did you just threaten me?”

Sam’s head ping-ponged between his brother and the angel, eyes wide. 

The two stared each other down, as only the two could. 

“Yes.”

Cas stood there, his eyes dark and stern, towering over the two boys perched at the end of the bed.  Dean finally let out a scoff of derision, leaned forward, and flicked the movie back on, settling in next to his brother.  After a beat, Cas returned to his seat at the table and continued to search on the laptop.

“Asshole,” Dean crunched a mouthful of chips around the word.

“Dean,” hissed Sam, “he’ll hear you.”

“So?” Dean’s volume didn’t quite match his chutzpah.

“So, we’ll get punished, you heard him.”

“Punished?  We’ve boinked, what’s he gonna do—share my dick pics?”

As Sam gagged and buried his face in his forearms, Cas casually informed them, “I _can_ hear you both and Dean—that’s _one_.”

 

Hours later, Cas had little more to go on regarding Irini, the Alpha witch, or the book.  The lore they needed existed only in texts and research journals—all found in the Men of Letters Bunker.  Cas could fly there, but the angel didn’t trust his charges to stay out of trouble.  They had take-out for breakfast and lunch and the room was littered with wrappers and pizza crust. Their movie marathon over, the brothers were loudly bickering again.  Looking around, even the angel felt stir crazy in the cramped space and suddenly announced, “Get your shoes on, boys, we’re going for a ride.”

The town was busy and traffic congested, but the trio in the Impala didn’t seem to mind, happy to be free of their motel funk.  “Hey, Cas, look, they’ve got indoor paint ball.”

“Ages ten and up,” Cas read the sign aloud, “just what do you expect your brother to do?  Watch?”

Dean sat back in his seat, disappointed, as Sam spoke up, “There’s a department store, we could get clothes that fit better.”

“Seriously, nerd?” Dean wacked his brother’s arm, “We finally get outta that hole and you wanna go back-to-school shopping?”

“Sam, that’s a practical idea and we can stop on our way back,” Cas eyed Dean’s dejection in the rearview, “but first, there’s someplace I’d like to take you.”

Cas drove the boys to the highway and got off in a much bigger town, a city, from the height of the buildings.  The brothers watched the signs pass and the traffic get heavier, until they drove under a glorious arch, announcing their arrival at the Kansas Speedway.

“No way!”

“Awesome!”

Nodding at his charges’ approval, Cas parked and smirked with amusement, as the boys piled out excitedly.  The roar of the racing cars echoed from the stadium, as the three approached the ticket counter.  Dean took Cas’ arm and squeezed, “I take it back, Cas—you’re not an asshole.”


	30. Winchesters, at Any Age

The boys had yet to grow bored, even after two hours of watching the same cars take the same laps, over and over—but the same couldn’t be said for Cas.  The angel actually slumped in his seat, his vessel untiring, but his spirit weary from the sustained repetition.  Sam and Dean, for their part, cheered along with crowd, rooting for one driver or another and chattering endlessly about their stats in the program.  Cas had kept busy at first scanning the extensive crowd and their immediate surroundings for signs of danger, but soon turned his attention to his young companions.  The brothers had continued some of their petty squabbling, contending for everything from the “better” seat to possession of the program, which was big enough for them to each view a page, side-by-side.  But when the pistol fired and the first race began, the Winchesters seem to set aside their current differences in lieu of a who-could-scream-the-loudest contest.  Cas was content to watch them root and jeer, bouncing in their seats with animated faces.  They looked happy.  While the angel kept one eye on the throng, his boys acted like they didn’t have a care, aside from who would win—like they weren’t being hunted by an ancient monster, bent on draining their blood to preserve its own life.

So, Cas could tolerate his growing boredom, knowing Sam and Dean were having fun for a change and not just trying to figure out how to survive.  They had been laughing hysterically over a joke Sam made about a driver named “Buttman” when Dean asked, “Can we get something from the snack bar, Cas?”  Looking around at the mob of spectators, the angel held out both his hands.  “Only if you two stay close, I don’t want you lost in this crowd.”

Sam stood and took Cas’ hand, but Dean made a face, “Aw, c’mon, you really think we need field trip buddies?”

“Take my hand, Dean, or we’re going nowhere.”

Folding his arms and sitting back in his seat, Dean turned his attention back to the track.  “Fine, I’ll stay here.”

“Not alone, you won’t.”  Cas withdrew his offered hand and planted it on his hip.  Sam looked from his brother to the angel and back again, knowing this wasn’t going to end well. “C’mon, Dean, I’m hungry—don’t be a jerk.”

“Then you go, whiner, I’m watching the race.”

Tugging Cas’ hand, Sam did whine, “Ca-as, c’mon, let’s go without him.  We shouldn’t even get him anything.”

But Cas took his seat and narrowed his eyes at Dean’s freckled profile, “I’m sorry, Sam, but your brother is being…difficult.” 

“Aw, man, thanks for nuthin, Dean.  You really are a jerk.” Sam’s voice was watery, as he plopped back into his seat.

“So, cry, bitch.”

“Enough.”

Cas’ glare remained steely, while his voice grew sterner, “That’s _two_ , Dean.”

Sam sniffled, watching the cars with disappointment.  The angel kept his eyes on his stubborn charge, but told his sulking brother, “Of course, I could just carry him.” That got the young hunter’s attention.  Dean’s jaw fell open, but one look at Cas and he knew the angel wasn’t bluffing.

“Fine, we’ll all hold hands and sing Kumbaya in the hot dog line.”

Cas kept the boys close through the stadium and even closer at the concession stand, as they spotted treats and souvenirs for sale.  Cas realized they couldn’t hold both their food and his hands, so he found them a picnic table and the kids dug in.  Watching the Winchesters stuff themselves full of fried food and more soda, Cas made a mental note to start tomorrow with a healthy breakfast—even if Dean would scoff.  Their young bodies needed nutrition, exercise, and more than their usual four hours of sleep—much more.  Cas had vowed to keep them safe and the young hunters’ safety included providing their needs.  Tired, hungry kids weren’t just difficult to manage, they were unhappy.  Cas had always wanted Sam and Dean to be happy—these vulnerable, more emotional little versions, even more so.  Right now, they were happy enough, eating junk food at the racetrack and Cas’ lofty goal to protect the Winchesters didn’t seem so unattainable. 

“Cas, I gotta go to the bathroom.”

“Your brother is still eating, can it wait?”

Dean started squirming, “No, I gotta pee, like yesterday.”  Dean shook the ice in his empty soda cup to prove his point. “The bathroom’s right there.”

Cas looked to the men’s room door, then back at the wriggling boy, his green eyes pleading. “OK, Dean, but speak to no one and come right back.  Sam, you’ll need to go before we leave.”

Dean jumped to his feet and gave Cas a peck on the cheek, hurrying on his way.  “Ew, I’m eating, here!”

Cas smiled.  The Winchesters, at any age, were the Winchesters—smart, funny, and frequently deadly.  The angel felt that much more confident that he could keep the brothers out of harm’s way. But Castiel’s confidence was soon shattered.

Dean never returned from the men’s room.


	31. WWDD?

Castiel was not one to panic.  As a soldier of Heaven, he fought with precision and efficiency.  For millennia, the Seraph had met challenge and adversity with calm reasoning, planning, and logical choices.  The angel was cool.

Cas ran from one end of the Speedway stadium to another, dragging Sam Winchester behind him and calling Dean, loudly.  He stopped only to give vendors and other staff the boys’ description and report him missing.  Sam tried to catch his breathe at these stops, dialing Dean’s phone repeatedly, but finding his voicemail turned off.  Eventually, his little legs gave out and the child sat on the floor.  Cas scooped him up and continued his search amid the packed seating area, only to reluctantly cede to Sam’s reference to the needle in the haystack.

“If he ran away, why would Dean come back in here, Cas?  And if something took Dean—”

The rest of Sam’s sentence dissolved into Cas’ shoulder, as the exhausted boy broke down.  The angel stroked his little friend’s hair, realizing again he wasn’t handling this well.  When he noticed how long Dean was taking in the bathroom, Cas had pried Sam away from his fries, only to check the stalls and come up empty.  When at the end of the long row, the two emerged from a second entrance—and still no Dean—Castiel had lost his angel cool.  Bending down and taking Sam by both upper arms, Cas confronted the small boy, “Where is he?  Where has Dean gone?”

“I-I don’t know, Cas.”

That earned Sam a shake, as Cas’ frustration mounted.  “Think, Sam!  He must have told you something!  He said we needed a plan—what’s he think he’s going to do?”

When the flustered angel raised his voice, Sam’s vision blurred.  “I-I-I don’t know, I swear.  H-h-he didn’t tell me anything.”  Tears spilled down Sam’s flushed face.

But Cas pressed him further, “Samuel, I need you to think.  What would Dean do?”

“Y-you’re hurting my arms, Cas.”

Letting his grip go immediately, Cas’ expression softened. “I am so very sorry.” He smoothed Sam’s sleeves, then gently wiped his fingers across the teary little face.  “Please accept my apologies.  I’m not angry with you, Sammy, I’m worried about Dean.”

Sam hiccupped and nodded, “Me too.”

Kissing the boy’s tangled crown, Cas smiled warmly and offered his hand, “Well, let’s find him.”

After hours of searching, Cas had little choice but to return to the car, with a sleeping Sam in his arms.  It was heartbreaking to hear the little hunter cry for his lost brother and a relief when the day caught up to the child and he drifted off, hiccupping and sniffling in the crook of Cas’ collar.  Sam stretched out on the back seat, comfortable in the familiar space.  As Cas buckled him in, the little hunter let out a mumble in his sleep that sounded like, “such a jerk.”  Cas smoothed the boy’s hair back and pulled one of Dean’s flannels from his bag, the large shirt covering most of Sam’s small frame.

Cas returned to the motel, hoping beyond hope that there would be some sign or lead to where Dean may have gone.  Sam was still sleeping, so he tucked him into bed, complete with Dean’s blue plaid shirt and combed the room for any clues.  Nothing stood out, so Cas searched the brothers’ travel bags.  He found Sam’s wallet, unsurprised not to find Dean’s.  But there seemed to be something else missing.  Cas checked that Sam was still sleeping, then powered up the wards and headed for the Impala.  After searching the interior, Cas took careful inventory of the trunk arsenal.  It was difficult to know the exact number of knives or even guns the Winchesters toted in Baby’s concealed compartment, but one weapon was conspicuously missing—the Colt.


	32. Still a Hunter

Dean turned the Colt over in his hands.  The weapon was heavy, long, and unbalanced in his grip, but with some practice, he was sure he could fire it.  Aim was another thing, though.  The bathroom door opened and Dean jumped, quickly hiding the weapon under his sweatshirt, on the bus seat next to him.  As the passenger took his seat, another entered the cramped toilet.  Shitty seat, but the only spot on the bus where the boy didn’t have to sit next to—and talk to anyone.  The quicker he got back to the bunker, the better.  Dean had his phone, but would have to turn on his own tracking, in order to find Irini—and that’s if the skinwalker still had Cas’ phone.  He hoped she did, he hoped she took the bait, and he hoped the enemy of his enemy was his friend.  Dean looked out the window at the highway scenery and hoped a lot.  Mostly, he hoped Cas and Sam would forgive him.

He had made his decision to act that afternoon, realizing Cas would face holy fire, losing his grace, and even his death to protect Dean and his brother.  The angel had always had their backs and Dean had lost count of how many times he’d saved their lives, but the stalwart conviction with which Cas laid down the law today confirmed to Dean that Cas was ready to die for them.  And without their help!  No way, uh-uh, Dean couldn’t sit by and let his partner—their friend—self-sacrifice, not while he was breathing and could _sort of_ hold a gun.  Dean had been changed before—into monsters, a demon, he walked the veil more than once—shit, he’d even been a dog and just because his voice squeaked and he had no body hair didn’t mean he wasn’t still a hunter.  He was Dean Winchester and he had a plan, one that could work—and nobody (good) had to die.  He hoped.

The confounded door opened again and Dean pulled his shirt up over his nose, blocking out the scent.  He’d had worse rides.  And better.  Sam better be picking up his crap and keeping his Baby clean or he’d kick his ass. 

No, he wouldn’t. 

Dean loved his brother so fiercely, he couldn’t imagine being closer to another person.  But the last few days, Dean’s feelings had been in overdrive.  It was weird, but even when they argued, Dean adored his six-year-old brother’s company.  Little Sammy was cute, funny— _and fun_.  In this young body, Dean was quicker to temper and had a sharper tongue, yet he laughed a lot more.  He could’ve done without the weepy moments, but he’d noticed overall, these kid feelings were pretty gratifying.  He got a thrill from salt and sweets, TV was _way_ cooler, and he had felt genuine joy when Cas surprised them with the race track.  So, now he felt bad.

He was sure Cas was worried sick—and probably pissed—but he had also ditched Sam without any warning and the little guy was no doubt scared.  He hoped he didn’t make him cry.  Dean didn’t like seeing Sam cry, he never had.  Growing up, his Dad and his brother had butted heads, time and time again, and Sam usually lost the battle of wills.  Dean’s soft spot for his brother meant he was always Sam’s shoulder to cry on, his comfort after punishment, there to bolster him through his disappointment.  Dean was a good big brother.  But as he watched the guard rail zip by, he felt like a heel.  At least Sam had Cas.  His friend would protect and comfort him in Dean’s absence—Cas gave the best hugs.  Dean sniffled.  _Damn_.  He missed them both, what did he think he was doing?  What if his plan didn’t work—how much would _they_ miss _him_?  He shook off that awful thought and put his phone away—he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding it.

The sun was going down, so hiding the Colt more securely, Dean yawned and closed his eyes.  Soon, he’d be home and sending out an invitation to the monster who wanted him dead.  And his brother.  And his angel.  Dean drifted off to the sound of the bus engine and the vibration of the tires beneath him.  He felt himself slide and sat his frame up straighter in his seat, the sun warm on his face.  Sun?  Dean opened his eyes and looked out over the lake, his fishing pole wedged between the planks of the dock. 

“Hello, Dean.  You are in _so_ much trouble.”

 


	33. Where to, Kid?

Looking out at the calm, familiar water, Dean should have felt at peace.  He’d always loved this dream of the fishing hole where his father had once taken him.  While on the road, Sam had fallen asleep and John Winchester pulled off into a dirt path, stopping the Impala by a tiny bait store.  Dad told Dean to watch his brother and disappeared into the shingled building, stepping over a hundred-year-old dog (well, he looked it) in the doorway.  They parked by this lake, a pond, really and John cracked the windows for his sleeping youngest, taking Dean to the nearby dock.  He remembered how excited he’d been to hold the rented rod and spend this priceless time with his father—even if the worms had been yucky and they didn’t catch a darn thing.  They small-talked some, but mostly just sat and watched the line in the still water.  Dean couldn’t remember how old he had been, but Sam was still so little, had he been awake, their father probably wouldn’t have attempted the stop.  It was Dean’s single best memory with his Dad.

“Where are you, Dean?”

Startled from his memories, Dean turned to Cas beside him, watching the water, too. 

“I-I’m on a bus.”  Though he spoke with the deep adult voice of Dean Winchester, the hunter stammered, his tone guilty. 

“Why did you leave?  We’ve been worried sick, you’re brother’s—”

“Please tell Sam I’m sorry.  Please, Cas, make sure he’s not scared, I’m ok.”

“I will, but that’s not good enough, Dean.  I can reassure him but I can’t allay his fear.”

Finally, Cas faced Dean, squatting to look the seated man in the eyes, “But you can.  Call him, Dean—and then come back.”

Dean looked away from Cas’ condemning stare, “I’ll call him, I will.  But I’m not coming back now.  I have a job to do—and a plan, Cas.”

“Look at me.” The angel turned Dean’s chin with two fingers and again locked eyes, “You _will_ get off that bus, you _will_ return to the motel—and you _will_ face the consequences of your actions.”

Dean started, “The consque—?” but stopped when Cas’ face darkened with anger.  “Cas, I…I can do this.  Just cuz _you_ might think I’m just a Goddamn kid—”

“That’s _three_ , Dean.”

Dean stopped again, his mouth apparently lacking saliva.  He licked his lips and tried again. “I’m, I’m…”

“Ten years old, Dean—don’t let your dream image go to your head.  At the moment, you still look like a little boy— _and_ you’re fully acting like one.”

At Cas’ stern assessment, Dean grew quiet.  Again, he turned to face the water, feeling Cas’ eyes bore into him.  “What would you do if you were me?”

“I would return to the motel.”

Dean shook his head, “No. No, you wouldn’t.  If Sammy and I were in danger and you had a plan that could—that _would_ work, you’d be on a bus, too.”

“I have wings.”

“You know what I mean, Cas,” Dean turned in his lawn chair, “You said it yourself once, _sometimes we do the wrong thing for the right reason_.”

“I said that to an adult Dean Winchester, trying to cope with the damage you’d caused.  This plan of yours is the wrong thing for the _wrong_ reason.  Your judgment is clouded by your young mind, you’re wrong to think you can defeat Irini alone—and you were wrong to leave—to _run away_.”

“Who said I was planning to defeat her alone?”

Cas’ eyes did that slit thing again, “Dean, what are you up to?”

“If I tell you, you’ll stop me Cas.  She’ll find us, anyway—she’ll find _you_.  I’m not gonna let that happen.”

Cas grabbed Dean by the shoulder and shook him.  It felt incredibly real for a dream.  “I’ll stop you anyway, Dean.  Stop this, come back.  You’re brother—”

Cas kept shaking Dean, hard—the lake blurred, as his head wobbled and soon Cas no longer looked like Cas.  “Sammy?”

“The name’s Carl, kid.  We’re at the bus station, in Lebanon—time to get off.  The driver, smoothed his long hair back and secured it with his hat.

Carefully wrapping the Colt, Dean gathered his sweatshirt to his chest and exited the bus, his mind still muddled by the dream.  He called a taxi to take him to the bunker and went inside the near-empty bus station to wait, shivering without his sweatshirt.  He carried his bag of snacks from the convenience counter into the bathroom, where he used the paper bag to stow the Colt and warm up in his sweatshirt.  He dialed his phone again and after a few rings, Sam’s adult voice told him to leave a message.  “Sammy, it’s me—I’m fine.  Listen, I’m sorry, kiddo, I shoulda told ya, but you would’ve told Cas.  Still, I’m a jerk, I know.  I’ve got a way to fix this—”

“Someone in here call a cab?  Says the meter’s running.”

Dean nodded at the man’s head, sticking inside the door and it retreated.  “I gotta go, Sammy—just, listen to Cas, he’s pissed at me, so be good.  And Sam, you were ri—” BEEEEP.

Damn.  A knock, “Kid, I think he’s leaving.”

Dean just caught the impatient cab driver, miffed at him but happy to be in the warm car and out of the drafty bus station.  “Where to, kid?”

“Topeka, please”

The cabby turned and eyed the boy in the oversized sweatshirt, “That’ll cost ya.”

Dean pulled out the bills he’d drawn from the ATM back in Arkansas, “Drive. I have to make some calls.”

Asking to pull over for a stop in Topeka, Dean claimed he needed a bathroom.  There, he turned on his phone’s GPS and gave the driver a fifty-dollar bill to idle his cab a while longer—and stop asking him questions.   

Nearly an hour later, he instructed his befuddled chauffeur to head back to Lebanon. 

“You gonna give me an address this time, kid?”

Dean gave him a street name a distance from the bunker.

“That’s just a service road—where you going so late?”

“Home.”


	34. Hello, Dean

Rowena’s bosom rang, her cell’s tone an operatic aria.  “May I?” the witch asked, her honey-sweet tone out of sync with the daggers she was sending toward Irini, who was trying to figure out an app on Cas' phone.  As the fat lady continued to warble loudly, the queen waved her hand, “Go ahead, but no witch small talk.  Damn it , I’ve never been good with these things.”

Rowena pulled the phone out of the neckline of her dress and answered immediately, her lashes wide, “Hello, Dean.”

Irini abandoned her app and rushed closer to the witch, who was now sitting up at attention and staring at the queen.  “Mm-hm, I see.  Ye had this book, but now ye lost it,” the redhead’s curls bounced, as she laughed silently, “And where would ye like to meet?  Mm-hm.  Ye know ye’ll have to lower your warding for that, young man.”  Dean’s high voice resonated from the phone.  “Take it easy, I know, I know—if I try anything, ye’ll kill me.  Nice to know nothing changes.”  Irini was gesturing frantically for Rowena to ask another question.  Finally, the queen circled Cas’ head and clasped his hands together in false prayer. Rowena smiled, “Oh, Dean—where is yer angel these days?  If ye remember, we have some, er, bad blood between us.”

Irini looked so expectantly at the witch, that Cas’ blue eyes were round, his brow raised into his hairline.  Rowena tried very hard not to laugh at the skinwalker, listening to Dean’s answer and answering with a “Hm, I see.  And yes, I know—ye’ll kill me.”

Confirming a time, the witch hung up. 

“Is the angel there, too?”

“Why didn’t ye tell me Dean’s been de-aged?  Did ye _not_ think that information might be important in locating him?”

“ _Is the angel with Dean_?”

“No.” Rowena said, coldly, then more animated, “Is Sam young, too?  Oh, oh, oh—what about Castiel?  I bet he’d have _wee wings_ …”

“Shut up.  The Winchesters can’t get the book to work any more than I can.  I’m sure they didn’t intend to make themselves more vulnerable.  The angel is full-sized and full-powered.  I need him.  We’ll go to the brat, but you have to convince him to call for Castiel.”

“That might be harder than ye think—the boy says Cas can’t know about me coming.  And if yer thinking torture, this is Dean Winchester, little or not, he _will_ protect his angel and his brother.  By the looks of ye when I was summoned, the sweet little boy did ye some damage.  Good thing I found you that big, bad hunter—though such a pity that spell was writ to be powered by an Alpha. At least his blood could make you new and shiny.”

“Shut up.  That’s what you’re here for.  You have to call him back, tell him you want to see the angel to…I don’t know, to clear that bad blood or something.  Just get him there.”

Rowena stared at the old queen, thoroughly unimpressed.  “He’ll know something’s up, ye daft cow.  I set Castiel on him, once, and he’s never forgotten.  I mean, it’s ridiculous, really, the spell was meant for Cas to kill my son—”

“SHUT UP!”

Rowena fell silent, if not still unimpressed. 

Irini lowered Cas’ voice even deeper, “You belong to _me_.  You want the book?  _Call Dean Winchester back_.”

“Tsk, tsk, temper, temper, queenie.  I already told ye how this is going to go.”

Irini thrust both Cas’ hands toward the witch, as she whispered and Cas’ frame froze.

On the table, Cas' phone played "Happy".  Rowena rose, circumvented the Cas statue, and picked it up.

“Well, well, Y’Highness, wishes do come true.”  She whispered the word again and the queen fell face-first into Rowena’s empty chair.  As Irini righted herself, the witch handed over Cas' phone and skinwalker lit up.

Shaking off her ill-treatment, Irini cleared Cas’ throat and made him say,

“Hello, Dean.”


	35. Figure it Out

“Hello, Dean.”

“Don’t _you_ say that—not that.  Listen, Irini, I’m the one who killed your Alpha witch, it’s me you want.”

“Aren’t we a brave boy, long-distance?  How’s the nose, Dean?”

“I’m fine.  Ready for a second round.”

“Will the angel be there?  I was so disappointed we didn’t get to mingle.”

The boy didn’t answer right away, but then, “Well, you’ll get your chance, he’s here, too.  And so is his grace.”

Irini dropped the sing-song in Cas’ voice, “Where are you?”

“I know you’re an old lady—a _really_ old lady, but you gotta be able to use a stupid phone.  How do you think we found you?  Figure it out.  Later.”

The call went dead and Irini took a moment to swallow her pride—time to make nice with the witch.  “He told you he’s at the bunker, right?”  She held Cas’ phone out to Rowena.  “Well, he says I can find him with this—show me how to make sure.”

Standing at arm’s length, Rowena took the phone.  “Show me how to make sure, _please_.”

“Smiling wide, Irini forced Cas’ voice through his teeth, “Pu-lease,” sounding like Severus Snape with an advanced case of shingles.

“Very well,” Rowena fiddled with the phone, “What do ye know?” She turned the screen to show the queen what she’d discovered.  “Not at the bunker, after all—that wee dot’s in Topeka.  Wooooonder what he could be up to?”

Not catching on, the queen shrugged.  “When are you meeting him?”

“In the morning, poor tot needs his beauty sleep, I guess.”

“We’re going to Topeka first.”

“To chase after a boy’s silly diversion?  Cut this bind and I’ll just drop ye off, so ye can totter about town while I meet with Dean.”

Irini snatched back Cas’ phone, reminded of her goose-chase in the park. “So, he thinks I’m stupid.”

It was Rowena’s turn to speak through her grinning teeth, “Apparently, yes.”

The queen narrowed Cas’ eyes in a perfect angel impression, “It’s a long ride to Lebanon, we’ll have to leave now.”

Rowena glanced out the window, to the parking lot, “Oh, how I’ve longed for a road trip in a Corolla.”  She lifted the translucent chains, “And just what do ye think Dean Winchester will do when I arrive at his party in these— _and_ with an uninvited guest?”

Irini produced the book and softened Cas’ expression, “Guess we’ll need another crummy illusion.”


	36. The Brightest Hunter

With Sam nodding out on Cas’ shoulder, Harry Potter night ended early.  Cas spent the evening by Sam’s side, but the boy’s sleep was fitful and restless.  Dean’s shirt only seemed to agitate him, so the angel removed it, along with his nightmares.  But he dreamed again and again, waking more than once, before Cas could intervene.  Sam eventually settled on the angel’s chest, drifting off to Cas’ deep tone describing the Earth’s earliest days.  Cas was amused that with Sam’s ardent affinity toward history and lore, it was stories of the dinosaurs that finally soothed him to sleep.

With the boy relaxed at last, Cas closed his own eyes and waited for the other young Winchester to sleep—and to dream.  It was still early evening, but Dean had to have put some effort into his getaway plan and Cas was sure the day would soon catch up to the boy.  It amazed Cas how stubbornly Dean refused to see his childlike nature, while his brother seemed to take his own in stride.  Maybe it was Sam’s younger age, but the child didn’t seem to mind being a child, one bit.  Sure, he was emotional and sensitive, but it was these very same qualities that made him a thoughtful, affectionate boy.  Cas wrapped an arm around the snoring little hunter and prayed he would be able to keep him safe.  He also prayed the same for Dean, searching the dreamplane for his subconscious. 

And then, he was there, at the lake—with Dean.

As Cas returned his awareness to the motel bed, he whispered Dean’s name and Sam stirred, moaning and keening.  Cas knew Sam cried for his lost brother and calmed the boy again with a touch, gathering him closer in his arms.  Cas hummed an ancient hymn and Sam quieted.

Then Sam’s phone rang on it’s charger, buzzing against the bureau. 

Damn. 

Cas knew it was Dean fulfilling his promise, but Sam was so deeply asleep, the phone didn’t rouse him.  Still, Cas longed to answer it, knowing Dean woke from his dream unconvinced of the folly of his plan.  The angel had a few more choice words for the young hunter.  But as the call went to voicemail, Cas stayed still, taking care of the child in his arms, rather than the one he couldn’t reach—literally and figuratively.  Sam would be upset he missed the call, but glad to know his brother was unharmed.

Sam’s little bladder woke him around six.  He emerged from the bathroom with the seams of Cas’ shirt printed on his cheek and his hair a disaster.  The angel held out his phone.

“He called, Sam.”

As he listened to the message, Sam teared up and sniffled and when it was done playing, he asked Cas, “D-did you hear it?”

“No, Sam, the message was for you.  But I spoke to Dean last night.  He can turn off his phone, but not his dreams.”  Cas smoothed down Sam’s tangled hair, as he spoke.  “I take it, he didn’t divulge the details of his plan to you, either?”

“Nope.”  He shook his messy head, sadly. 

“I’m sorry, Sam.  As much as we both love your brother, he’s been very thoughtless.  Did he behave this way the first time he was this age?”

Sam shrugged and swiped at his tears, “I don’t know, I guess so.  Dean got in trouble sometimes.  He did what Dad said, or he…he got it.”

“I imagine, so.  John Winchester had a lot on his plate, hunting while trying to keep you both safe.”

“I guess,” Sam yawned and stretched.  “I’m hungry.”

“Why don’t you wash up and I’ll get you some breakfast, from the lobby.  I’ll arm the wards and if you need me, just pray—I’ll be here in an instant.  Irini has my phone.”

“Here, Cas, just take mine.  I can use the room phone and—wait!”  Sam looked at his phone, excitedly, “See that dot over the GPS app?  Dean’s is on, Cas! I know where he is!”

“You really are the brightest hunter of your age, Sam.”


	37. To Cut the Bitterness

Dean’s plan wasn’t working the way he had hoped.  The young hunter had expected to be fully prepared for his meeting with Rowena, but after circling the wide perimeter of the bunker and lowering its extensive witch warding, the boy grew so tired, his vision blurred.  He still had work to do, but as three a.m. approached, his memory foam called to him.  Another cat nap—half of his usual four hours would be enough to get him through the night, so he set his alarm and climbed under the covers.  Alone.  If missing Cas and Sam had socked Dean in the feels back on the bus, then sleeping by himself in the vast bunker crushed them under a ton of lonely.  Exhausted as he was, Dean’s small frame tossed and turned in the large bed, until at last he drifted off, a mere hour from his alarm setting.  When it sounded, the boy shut it off, then groaned groggily at the time and set the snooze for another hour. 

Dean sat up with a start, at the second loud signal, letting the tone play over and over as he shook off his insufficient rest and dragged himself from his comfortable bed.  Forgoing the tight boots, he padded his way to the kitchen, the empty bunker feeling cavernous around him as he started the coffee maker.  His usual cup of black tasted terrible, though and the boy scrounged around to find sugar, to cut the bitterness.  Some added two-percent and soon the lukewarm drink resembled what older Dean liked to call a ‘breakfast milkshake’—but younger Dean found satisfying. 

The caffeine worked quickly in his ten-year-old body and soon Dean set to work, loading the Colt and gathering tools from the bunker dungeon, as well as a list of herbs he had memorized from the Alpha book.  Striking out the final anti-witch ward, the boy sat down to breakfast—a deep bowl of mixed cereals and milk, (which got the new sugar treatment) followed by a childhood obsession of Dean’s, where the boxes _had_ to be lined up in alphabetical order.  He perused his phone.  With no call yet from Rowena, Dean turned his text messaging back on—only to find a dozen texts from his little brother.  Just as Cas had chided, Sam had been frantic for him to answer, his texts ranging from “Where are you, Jerk?” to “PLEASE, DEAN, JUST ANSWER.  PLEASE.” 

Guilt burning his cheeks, Dean began to type what he hoped was a better-late-than-never answer.  He got as far as “I’m sorry” when something occurred to him.  Returning to his home screen, Dean’s eyes went wide—he’d screwed up.  He’d _left his GPS on_ , after Topeka.  Dean tried to buy some time by throwing Irini off his scent—he had even taunted her to track him—but had blanked on the fact that Sam and Cas could, too.  At least Sam’s phone wasn’t moving—still in East Kansas.  Still, Dean's heart sank, as he turned off the app, the tell-tale dot winking out.  How could he make a mistake like that?  Like a _stupid kid_ that forgets important stuff when he’s tired.

Shit.  Shit.  Shit.

Shitshitshitshitshitshitshitshit…

“Hello, Dean.”

The boy nearly jumped out of his young skin, but then, let out a sigh of relief.  “You’re late, Rowena.”

“And ye look a little short to be a Storm Trooper, Dean.  Ye also look like you’ve seen a ghost, my dear.”

“I’m not _your dear_ and I’m fine, you just surprised me.”

Rowena waxed polite, “Beg ’pardon, Dean, I can see ye are fine—a fine young man, that is," she suppressed a laugh, barely, "Tell me, what spell did ye bungle to lose yer manhood?”

“Never mind.  I need your help and...there’s something in it for you.”

“For me?” The witch splayed a hand on her chest, “What did I do to deserve such generosity from a Winchester?”

“Nothing.  You’re evil and I don’t trust you—no mistake about that. _But_ , I need you.”

Rowena folded her arms, her sparkly dress shimmering.  “If yer not going to put yer cards on the table, there’s elsewhere I need to be, kiddo.”  She raised a hand to snap her fingers.

“Wait! …Er, cup of tea?”

Rowena sat in the stainless-steel bunker kitchen, her crossed legs bouncing a heel, impatiently.  Her voice rang with annoyance, “Y’know, watching ye little hands boil water is _exceedingly_ fascinating, Dean, but not what I expected, being called by a Winchester.”  She stood, advancing her usual diminutive stature on Dean’s even shorter one.  Suddenly, Dean was face-to-face with high, Scottish cheekbones and blue eyeshadow.  The young hunter stepped back, into the counter, as the witch bent down closer.  Grasping blindly at the counter behind him, Dean watched Rowena’s bright red lips mouth a single word, whispered in a breath.

 

“Poughkeepsie.” 


	38. Magic Book Wanted

When Irini first encountered Theodora, kneeling in her throne room, the queen had immediately disliked the creature.  But against her better judgment, she’d trusted the Alpha to deliver to her immortality.  Of course, the witch had used her gift to trick and betray her, as witches were known to do.  And they still did.

As Rowena approached the young hunter who had killed her Alpha, the boy reached toward some cereal boxes, on the counter beside him—but then stopped and drew back, quickly, concealing his hand in his sweatshirt.  Enough of this chit-chat crap, it was just a kid.  Invisible to his eyes, Irini dove toward Dean, but the witch turned and froze her once again, with a word of Latin.  Dean stared at the spot behind Rowena, the old dagger now out of his pocket, at the ready.  “Where is she?  Where is she?” demanded Dean, his prepubescent voice squeaking.  The witch waved a shiny arm and the figure Dean knew was not Cas came into view, frozen in place, reaching to grab him with stilled arms.  At the same time, Rowena’s glassy chain and shackles appeared, but what caught Dean’s eye were the Enochian irons on the floor, next to the paralyzed skinwalker.

“Y’know who this is, I take it?”

“Yeah, she looks more like Cas than the last time I saw her, though.  Certainly, a lot quieter.”

“The spell isn’t permanent, Dean,” Rowena held out her shackles, “I’m bound to Irini.  If ye want my help, ye’ll have to remove these.”

“How?  She’s got the book, all smooshed up in her hand.”

Rowena rolled her pretty eyes, “Ye bound Death himself, once, Dean.  I know yer brain’s getting younger by the minute, but yer memory’s intact.” 

Unnerved by the witch’s observation, Dean actually whined, “It won’t work, we needed an ‘An Act of God’ last time.” 

“Trust me, Dean—”

“I don’t.”  Inside his hoodie pocket, Dean clutched the Colt more tightly.

“Nevertheless, there is a way to alter it, to match this spell.  I can’t do it, I’m the one who’s bound to that…thing.”

Dean picked up the angel cuffs and collar, “Fine.  But I keep these.”

 

In the library, Dean Scanned the pages of an old text and asked, “How’d you get mixed up with Irini, anyway?  You got a _magic book wanted_ ad on Craig’s List?”

“You and your brother killed our Alpha, Dean.  Anyone connected to Theodora knows who—” the witch preened at her hair around her shoulders, “well, who _I_ am.”

Unimpressed, Dean read through the spell and gathered the ingredients, “C’mon, we have to remove it in the binder’s presence.”

“Since that isn’t her true image, we’ll need a possession.”

Dean produced the queen’s ancient knife, “Like this?”  The young hunter prepared a space on the kitchen counter, carefully eyeing both the witch and skinwalker.  It was hard to look at Irini long, missing Cas so badly, but his mistrust for Rowena and her schemes kept him glancing over.  Before he began the ritual, Dean tucked the Colt into his jeans and lay his hands on the counter beside the sigil, painted from dried leaves and powders. 

“You try anything, witch, _anything_ and you’ll meet the same fate as your Alpha.”

“Oooo, so manly.  Can ye hold that gun without using two hands?”

“Shut up.  I can leave you bound, if you’d like.”

A few words and Dean was off his feet—suspended, upside-down in the air.  As the blood rushed to his head, he relented, “Ok, ok, I get it.  Jeez, I’ll reverse the spell!”

Dean was righted so quickly, it took a few moments for the dizziness to subside.  “I’ve got a plan to get the book, but you gotta promise to fix me and Sam, before you take it.”

“Cross my heart and—”

“Hope _you_ die.”

“Oh, someone’s skipped his bloody naptime.”

Drawing drops of both Irini and Rowena’s blood with the old dagger, Dean performed the ritual and the witch’s chains disintegrated.  She spread her arms wide, in a mock yawn and stretch and surprised Dean, with a polite “Thank ye.”

“Now what about her?”

“I’d kill her, if she didn’t have possession of the book—but she owns it.  We have to get her to willingly give it up.  The only reason she let me touch it was my binding.  Speaking of which…” Rowena uttered a spell and ropes appeared and tied Cas’ stiff arms to his sides, the skinwaker inside still motionless.  A few more words and Irini felt Cas’ frame finally loosen, but was instantly slammed into a kitchen chair, where the queen protested as magical ropes went to work on her legs.  “You foolish bitc—” the last bit on rope muffled her insult.

“I’m not sure our queenie’s going to willingly do anything.  Still have that dungeon here, do ye?”

“Well-stocked.”

“Come, my boy.”

Rowena raised a hand and the bound and struggling Cas look-a-like lifted off the floor, chair and all, floating along with them, as they started for the basement.  As they turned the corner into the dimly-lit dungeon, their captive suddenly dropped to the floor, the chair clattering, as Irini spilled out of it with a strangled cry.  But the skinwalker’s shout didn’t compare to the wail that Rowena let out, clutching her neck as she fell to her knees.  As the second witch-catcher clamped over her mouth, Rowena’s eyes stared at Dean in panic—but Dean stared right past her and asked, “Sammy, did you mess with my cereal boxes?”

Sam peeked out from behind the trench coat.  “Cas did, but I put them back.”

Dean Winchester had never been known for his shyness, but at that moment, when the hunter looked up at his furious angel, his little arms folded and his young face a mask of freckled attitude, Sam knew his brother had the single biggest of set of ten-year-old brass balls in his and several other dimensions.

Cas glared right back down at him.

“Hello, Dean.”


	39. I'll Take Care of You

“Stand over there and be quiet.”

Dean scoffed at Cas’ command, continuing to rummage through Men of Letters artifacts for magical locks.  The angel had already confiscated the manacles and the Colt and Dean was feeling sandbagged.  But his scorn turned to righteous indignation, as the angel took him firmly by the upper arm and marched him over to his brother.  Dean’s protest finally stopped, when Cas landed an almighty smack across the young hunter’s backside.

“Ow! Cas!”  Dean rubbed the tender spot, sure Cas had left another heavenly hand print there.  Sam whispered, “Shut it, Dean, you’re already in trouble.”

The boys watched Cas finish chaining the witch, then adding chains to Irini’s ropes.  Cas tried not to make eye contact with the skinwalker, as he found it disconcerting, to say the least.  The creature had powered-up some since Cas last saw her and she so closely matched the angel’s vessel, Cas knew the sight of her skinsuit had to be awkward for the boys, too.  Securing the Enochian shackles under magic locks, the angel turned to face his charges. 

“Sam, you had a trying night, with little sleep— _thanks to your brother’s disappearing act_ ,” said brother looked down at his bare feet, “I think you should try to rest awhile.”

Dean could tell Sam wanted to argue, but fond of his young life, he instead answered, “Ok, Cas.”

“I’ll be there, soon, to tuck you in.”

Before he left, Sam patted Dean on the shoulder.  His grim “Good luck” didn’t help to bolster his older brother's confidence. 

“Come, Dean.”  Cas guided the boy from the dungeon, a solid hand between his shoulder blades.  As Dean predicted, Cas took him to their room, where he led him by an arm to the foot of the bed, taking a seat in front of him.  The boy startled when Cas suddenly drew him close, hugging his small body tightly with his stubbled chin on Dean’s shoulder.

“How could you do that?  I was so worried, Dean.” 

Dean hugged Cas back, his nose getting prickly.  “I’m sorry, I know.”

“That’s just it, Dean—I know you know.”  The child gave a whine as the angel broke their embrace, holding the boy away to look him in his green eyes.

“Well?  What do have to say, Dean?” 

“I, um…” he faltered— _what did he have to say_?  _Oh, yeah, the plan_.  Dean clenched his jaw, “I had a plan, Cas—it was working and you ruined it.”

“Watch your tone, Dean—you were in the wrong.”  The angel’s blue eyes narrowed.  “You ran from us.  You were foolish to try to bargain with Rowena.  No matter what she told you—she’s ruthless and dangerous—just when were planning to use your witchcatchers?  And taking her to the dungeon, leading her right to our most powerful weapons—what were you thinking?”

Dean couldn’t deny the risks in his plan, especially when laid out in Cas’ stern, imposing timber.  He screwed up.  Running away, he’d hurt the people he loved, but not shackling Rowena off the bat—and forgetting his GPS, those were just foolish mistakes and try as he may, Dean couldn’t come up with excuses.  He’d been thrown off by Irini’s appearance, even awed a bit by Rowena’s magic—not the actions of a seasoned hunter, more like the _re_ actions of a little—

“ _Boy_ , answer me.”  Cas’ voice made Dean jump.

“I guess I wasn’t, really.  I thought I was, I swear, it all made sense, at the time.”

“And now, can you see how headstrong and badly behaved you’ve been?”

Dean’s toes pressed into the carpet, as the boy counted them—for reassurance.  Yup, still ten.  He heaved a shaky sigh, his lip quivering.  “Yeah, Cas.  I’ve been a little shit.”

The angel lifted the small hunter’s chin.

“Yes, Dean, yes you have.”

They stayed like that a few minutes, reality hanging in the air, between the couple.  Making up would go a new route here and both of them took their time processing this.

Cas stood and began to remove his trench coat.  “You know you’re going to be spanked, correct, Dean?”

“Ya gotta be so formal about it, Cas?”

“That’s not formal, young man, this is formal.”

Cas once again led Dean by an arm, parking him facing a corner.  “You will stay here until I return.  I’m going to check on Sam.”

Dean groaned, but stayed put, as Cas went to leave, calling “If Sammy’s awake, knock him out, please?  He hates this.”

“Your brother will be fine, Dean.  And we all hate this.”

As he expected, Cas found Sam fast asleep.  With his brother safe, for now, Sam’s little body could finally rest, almost lost in his extra-long bed.  Cas tucked the covers tightly around him and kissed the boy’s forehead, brushing back his bangs.  Sam made a contented sound and returned to snoring softly.

 

Dean heard Cas’ footsteps in the hall and scolded himself for the wave of fear he felt.  This was Castiel, the angel who loved him, and while he knew he was in for some hurting, Dean also knew Cas would never truly harm him.  Not without being under some stupid witch’s spell…trusting that same stupid witch had helped earn him his coming punishment.  Stupid witch.  Stupid Dean.  Stupid, stupid Dean.  He brushed away a stray tear on his sleeve, his fists balled up so tight, they ached.

Then Cas’ hands were wrapped around his, gently unclenching them and rubbing away the bite of the fingernails, on his palms. “C’mere, Dean.” Cas turned him by his shoulders to face him.  He stroked the boy’s upper arms and spoke softly, “Dean, beating yourself up for your mistakes will only lead you make more.  I know you feel guilty, but we’ll take care of that, now, ok?  I’ll take care of you.”

Dean couldn’t help the (stupid) tears from coming.  He wasn’t really afraid—Hell, he’d had his ass handed to him by John ‘ _I want to hear you count_ ’ Winchester himself and besides, this was Cas.  _His_ Cas.  He cried because he just felt so bad.  He scared poor Sammy.  He scared poor Cas.  He’d been stubborn and obstinate and, sneaky and Sam was right— _he was a jerk_.

Cas picked Dean up, under his arms, like he was even younger than his ten years and carried the boy against his chest to the bed.  The angel had a seat, setting Dean on the mattress beside him and helping the boy take off his hoodie.  Cas removed his suit jacket and unbuttoned his sleeves, rolling them both up.  Dean watched this ritual closely, knowing it to be the bane of all kids, awaiting a spanking.  He was already crying, so not getting emotional was off the menu, all the young hunter could hope for was to not create a spectacle of himself.  Dean had been in his teens the last time he received a spanking—a belting, actually—how bad could this be?  Cas patted his lap and guided Dean across it, face-down.  _Oh, crap, this is really gonna happen_.  He let the boy squirm a bit, until he got more comfortable, then placed a strong hand on his trembling back—and paused.

“I’m sorry, Dean.  This will be over soon.”

Dean didn’t get to answer, as Cas’ iron hand immediately landed on the seat of his jeans.   An “Ow!” popped out involuntarily, along with a kick of short bowlegs.  _Damn, ‘no spectacle’ was off the menu, too_.  A second hard spank landed a little lower and Dean let out another cry.  Then another.  And another and another...

Dean kicked away, like he was sure his backside was going to burst into flames any moment and was preparing to put it out.  He gave up trying not to yell his head off and instead, worked on forming some words, other than “Ow.” 

“C-Cas, I-I-I’m s-sorry…Ow!” Another fail.

The spanking continued, a maddening steady rhythm, systematically tenderizing every inch of Dean’s little bottom.  “S-sor-ry…”

“I know you are, Dean.  You’re doing well—I know this must hurt.”

At that, Dean broke down completely, all other words lost in his sobbing.

Suddenly, the relentless whacking stopped and Cas rubbed both Dean’s back and his throbbing backside.  “Shhh, I’m proud of you, Dean.  We’re almost done.”

Dean had trouble reconciling what Cas’ hands were doing with what Cas had just said.  He wanted it to be _all_ done— _almost_?  All the boy could do was lie there and cry.

Then, he felt Cas’ fingers at the waistband of his second-hand jeans and shook his head with dread as they were lowered.  Dean had foregone his saggy adult boxers and now had no line of defense against his punishment.  He threw back his hand, wailing in protest, but Cas caught it and shushed him, gently, “It’s ok, Dean.”  Feeling Cas’ oddly cool hand rest gingerly on his bottom, Dean stilled a bit. “This isn’t to hurt you more, it’s to see that I don’t.  Understand?  Almost done, I promise.”

Dean nodded.  His hand released, he gripped Cas’ pant leg tight and hung his head, waiting (but far from ready) for the finale.  Cas patted his hot little rear, assessing the damage, then steeled himself.

 _Whack_!

Dean was sure he’d been dragged back to Hell.  “Caaas!”

“I need you to listen to me, Dean.”

 _Whack_!

That one landed low, right where the boy wouldn’t be sitting, for a while.

“Your judgment is clouded by the spell.”

 _Whack_!

 Dean wished he’d never heard of spells, or magic—or clouds.

“You’re the best hunter I’ve ever known, Dean, but right now, you are only ten years old and you will not hunt.” 

 _Whack_! 

“You will not argue, nor will you lie or sneak.  And you will not run away.”

 _Whack_!

“Owwwwwaaahh!” Dean was absolutely sure he couldn’t take any more.  Not only had the sting increased exponentially, as Cas spanked him bare, but the lecture was doing its job—Dean felt very much like the naughty little boy Cas described.

 _Whack_!

Dean cried his little heart out—when would it end?

And like that, it did.  The young hunter found himself again hugged tightly against his angel’s chest. “Shhh, it’s all over.  It’s finished, Dean.”

Heartsick from Dean’s cries, Cas stood and carried him about the room, rocking him gently.  He left the boy’s pants at half-mast, sure he wouldn’t appreciate their friction, supporting Dean carefully and holding him close.  The child sobbed a river on Cas’ shoulder, soaking his dress shirt and bawling in Cas’ ear, while the angel rubbed his back and repeated, “It’s all over, Dean.”  Cas kissed Dean’s temple, his hair, his wet cheeks, “It’s over, now.”

Dean calmed slowly, crying out his guilt and remorse, as the fire in his backside cooled.  He couldn’t believe how much the spanking had hurt—had they always hurt this much?  Somewhere, deep-down Dean knew they had, but then again, he’d never been punished by his best friend—and onetime lover.  Having Cas warm his tail stung other places, too, and Dean wasn’t sure what to do with those feelings.

“C-Cas?”

The angel hummed in answer.

“You still m-mad at me?” 

“No, Dean.  I was never mad, not really.  Just scared.  And disappointed—very disappointed.”

Dean hiccupped and pawed at his red eyes, his head still resting on Cas’ shoulder. “Are you still d-disappointed?  In me?”

“No, I’m not.  I’m proud of you, Dean.  You faced and took your punishment well.  Now we can put it behind us.”

“It’s still behind me,” Dean reached back to rub his tender skin, “gonna be behind me a while.”

That got Cas to smile and patting Dean’s head, he suggested, “Why don’t we get you into something more comfortable?”

Dean resisted the strong urge to say something off-color—sore as he was, it just didn’t seem wise.  _Holy crap—had that spanking worked_?

Cas found Dean a large t-shirt that covered him to mid-thigh ( _Bad to the Bone_ ), not bothering with anything underneath and laid his sniffling charge belly-down, on the bed.  Toeing off his shoes, Cas stretched out beside him, his punishing hand now gently circling the boy’s back.  “Feel better?”

“A little, I guess—doesn’t sting so much.”

“If you’re good, I’ll heal you before bedtime.”

Dean gave Cas his best Sammy puppy eyes, but the angel just chuckled,” Don’t push your luck, kiddo.”

After a bit, Cas thought Dean might have drifted off, but then the boy asked, “Cas, do you forgive me?”

“Yes, Dean, completely.”

Dean smiled sadly and continued, “The skinwalker told me some stuff, when I thought she was you.”

“What sort of stuff?”

“She said you saved us a _lot_ and you left Heaven and fell for me and gave everything for me.”

“Those things are all true.”

“But she made you sound real mad about it, Cas, and she yelled ‘ _I can’t believe you don’t trust me, Dean_.’  Kinda scared me.”

Cas propped himself on an elbow and looked at the little person who once inspired an angel’s free will.  The boy’s green eyes were still red-rimmed and swollen, his face tear-stained.  In his adult shirt, Dean looked even smaller and his contrite tone made him seem every bit a child. 

Cas cupped his freckled face, “Dean, Irini knows my memories, but it seems she cannot access my feelings.  She said those things in anger, because she can’t know how I really feel about them.  I regret nothing I have ever done for you and Sam.  I’d fall for you all over again, Dean.”

Snuggling up to Cas’ chest, Dean sighed. 

“I’d fall for you again, too, Cas.”


	40. Behind the Iron Mask

Rowena was in shock.  One moment she was set free to deviously play both sides of the magic book game and next she was manacled and trussed up like a Sunday roast.  It was a downright improper way to treat a lady.

If Rowena felt offended, then Irini considered herself positively violated.  Seven centuries had apparently not been enough for the queen to learn that she could never trust a witch.  Irini had relied too heavily on the strength of the bonding spell—and her mistaken belief it would give her true power over the witch.  Since that first immortality spell, every one of the book’s magic benefits had come with a price—first the calculated sacrifice of her son, then years of supplicating herself for Theodora’s magic favors, and now the unreliability of the book’s spells.  The Alpha had written language into her spells that could only be fueled by natural magic—anyone using the book without it was only conjuring at half-mast.  Spells that gave strength but not life, tethers which didn’t enslave, and illusions that melted at a touch—all created as many problems as they solved.  The ancient skinwalker just needed a body or two of dead Winchester blood and all those problems would be behind her.  She had killed at least a dozen hunters in the past few months, why were these two so stubborn about dying?  And just what the Hell was _Poughkeepsie_?

Rowena made the only sound she could behind the iron gag, “Mmmm mm mm,” she explained to the queen, across the darkened room. 

“Ech-actly.  Ish is aw ya fauld, _itch_ ,” Irini explained right back, straining Cas’ lips to speak around the strip of rope. 

Rowena’s eyes went incredulously wide, gesturing her head with obvious blame toward her dungeon mate.  “Mmmm! Mm! MMM!”

“Oo ticked meh.”

Rowena waved her fingers (the only things she could wave) and rattled her chains.  This idiot—this magic-steeling, skinwalking angel imposter had summoned and bound _her_ —just what did queenie expect?  And the real angel—how dare he trap her in irons?  She was _helping_ his little boyfriend—couldn’t he see that?  He certainly couldn’t see her plan to slowly cast the skinwalker alive in molten silver, until she gave up the book.  If he had, Castiel would have seen that she had no plans to harm young Dean, only to remove him from getting in her way— _and maaaaybe teach the lad a lesson_ —by turning him into something harmless like a nice…houseplant.

Irini glared across the gloomy space, sending daggers from Cas’ blue eyes toward the red hair and sparkles.  But hating the back-stabbing witch proved only somewhat effective in covering her fear.  She had tortured the angel—what would the angel do to her?  She was sure she was still alive only because she possessed the book, but for how much longer?  Concentrating on the witch also helped Irini not to look around the dungeon, at the various weapons—and implements she knew were there.  Cas had helped catalogue them and his memory was serving to terrify the captive queen.  Pain was not her thing.  She really wasn’t cut out for this.

And so, the two “ladies” sat in the darkness, nearly motionless—save for their glaring eyes, each screaming at the other, in her own head, but neither making a noise.

Just then, someone upstairs started making a _whole lot_ of noise. 

“Tor-cha?”

“Mh-mh,” Rowena raised her eyes.  She couldn’t shake her head in the collar, but waggled a finger, listening to the distant sobbing.

Behind the iron mask, the witch _smiled_.


	41. Dreams and Waking Nightmares

Sam Winchester was in his first year at Stanford.  For the first time in his life, he had friends, a social life—even a girlfriend—and _nothing to kill._   He struggled a bit through his first semester, because though Sam had a penchant for learning, moving from school to school had deprived the young man of perfecting the practice of test-taking.  So, the clever Freshman took an adult re-entry course to pick up those skills and soon his GPA soared, right along with his popularity.  And now, he was at his first college frat party, beautiful Jessica Moore at his side, listening to others reminisce about their childhoods.  Jess had just finished sharing a story about her first camping trip and some hidden poison ivy, when a frat member from Sam’s Calculus class nudged him, “What about you, Winchester?  Where did you grow up?”

Sam cleared his throat, “Well, everywhere, really—we moved around a lot.”

“Your Dad military?”

“Um…yeah.”

“My Uncle was a Marine, where was he stationed?”

Sam surreptitiously dropped his Solo cup of keg beer, splashing it all over the kid and Jess too.

“Oh, Geez, oh, I’m sorry.  Excuse us, I’m going to help Jess clean up and see if there’s anyone else I can throw a drink at.”  Sam took Jess’ hand and beat a hasty retreat.

They found a bathroom and Sam started to towel off Jess’ legs, when her fingers stroked through his hair and she asked, “Baby?  When are you going to tell me who you are?”

Sam didn’t look up.  “You know who I am,” he finished with the towel, stood, and clasped his hand around Jess’ narrow waist, “I’m the guy who rocked your world last night—while reciting Keats in Latin."

She smirked at that, then opened her mouth to further confront her tipsy boyfriend, but got a lipful of Winchester, instead.  Their kiss led to love-making, right in the middle of that frat party—right on the bathroom throw rug.  It was his best college memory and as Sam remembered the cold floor on his legs and the smell of the nearby shampoo bottles, he closed his eyes and again felt Jess’ lips against his.  But she didn’t pull back—in fact, she held them there, until he felt he was suffocating.  Was she covering his nose?  Sam struggled to breathe, struggled against her body, and struggled to sit up—all to no avail. 

Little Sammy opened his eyes, to see— _Dean_?  His ten-year old brother had his hand clamped tightly across his face, leaning his larger body down on Sam’s small frame.  “Dean?” He muffled best he could, still straining for air.  But his brother didn’t answer, as Sam’s hands were taped behind his back, as well as his ankles.  Sam tried again to wriggle free, as the hand moved and he was gagged with more tape.  Was Dean possessed?  Why was Dean doing this?  _How_ was Dean doing this?

It all seemed impossible, then possible, as Sam caught the _im_ possible sight of Rowena poking her head over his brother’s shoulder.  Damn.

DamnDamnDamnDamnDamnDamn.

 

Cas was enjoying Dean; both the feel of the warm child in his arms and also the company of big Dean, in his dream.  The boy had drifted off easily, though Cas had difficulty keeping away his recurring nightmares.  Finally, the angel decided that after this nap, bedtime could be a long time off—and mercifully healed Dean’s sore bottom.  After that, the boy curled into Cas’s chest and made only contented sounds.  When Dean again dreamed, Cas closed his eyes and joined him—finding the adult hunter relaxed at his favorite lake.  A second chair appeared and Dean nodded for Cas to have a seat.  They watched the water, as they often did, Dean’s bobber the only disturbance on the crystal lake.  Cas reached over and took Dean’s hand.

“You ok?”

Dean shrugged but turned to his angel, “Yeah, Cas, I’m ok.  Takes more than a whoopin’ to whoop a Winchester.”

Cas smiled, “You are incorrigible, young man.”

“You’re the one who told me I was worth saving—I’m sure I’m _corrigible_ , too.”

Cas’ smile broke into a chuckle, “In that context, I take it back.  You’re both.”

They watched the water do absolutely nothing.

“Cas?  What’re we gonna do with them?  I mean, Irini won’t give up that book without a fight and don’t ma and Sam need Rowena’s help to grow back up, again?”

Cas nodded slowly.  “You’re correct on both, I think.  But Rowena’s help won’t come without a fight of her own.  We might have to make a deal.”

“The book.”

“Yes.  It’s all she wants, I’m sure.  All she wanted from you, correct?”

Dean winces, “Yeah.  She probably met with me just to get it.  I didn’t think that out very well.  Sorry.”

Cas squeezed Dean’s hand harder, “Let it go, Dean, I have.  Now, we have figure out a safe way to bargain with her—if that’s even possible.”

“I wanna grow back up, Cas.  I miss us.”

“Me too.”

Just then, Dean’s bobber dunked into the water and popped back up—that had never happened before.  Not here, in Dean’s dream lake.

As they watched, it happened again, creating wide ripples in the still lake, even splashing a bit, then sinking deep enough to pull out fishing line and spin the reel.

Lunging for the pole, Dean heard Cas shout his name and turned just in time to see the angel collapse from the chair to his knees, clutching at his throat.

The dream was gone and Cas’ hands were on him, but instead of bringing comfort, Dean was yanked from the bed and restrained tightly.  The boy fought hard, twisting in his captor’s grip to see _his_ angel, in obvious agony, again manacled in the cruel Enochian collar.  Rowena stood over him, fixing the cuffs in place, and smiling, wickedly. 

“Bitch! Get away from him!”

“Tsk, tsk, little hunter, talk like that will only get ye another sore bum.”

“Eat me!”

“Too bad, no time.  Told ye changing back would be worth the look on his face.” Rowena sighed and headed out the door.

Irini covered Dean’s offensive little mouth and growled in his ear, “You’re lucky she’s in a hurry.  She’s going to prepare your brother for sacrifice.  Now, just die too, like a good little bo—AAARRRGH!”

Dean sunk his teeth deep into fingers, causing the monster to pull its hand away and shake out the pain.  So, Dean dished out some more. He swung his foot back and gave the old queen a tremendous shot in Cas’ balls.  She tried to scream again but what followed was a high-pitched whine, as Cas’ borrowed ( _thank Chuck_ ) body sunk to the floor and Dean broke free of its grip.  The boy dove out the door and down the hall, ducking into a storeroom.  There, he squeezed behind some file boxes and into the crawlspace—one of many connected hidden tunnels installed by The Men of Letters.  He was in the walls of another room by the time Irini poked Cas’ reddened face into the door, then left in a huff.  Shit.

Shitshishishishitshitshishit.

They had Sammy.  They had Cas.  Think, Dean, _think_.  He started scrolling through his memory of the bunker’s layout, its weapons stock, and the possibility of reaching the Colt. _Think._

What would Cas tell him to do?  The young hunter’s heart sank, as the answer was obvious:

 ** _Run_**.


	42. Close Enough

Rowena was failing.  She tried repeatedly to work a spell with only her fingers, but the witchcatcher completely restrained her magic.  Irini watched the treacherous witch with disinterest, far more concerned with producing what she had magically hidden in her own fingers.  Apparently magic words needed to be spoken clearly, as the book remained hidden.  She kept trying, however, until she muttered something around her gag that the realm of incantation recognized.  Clouds rolled against the ceiling and the room down poured on the two, Rowena cussing out the amateur behind her iron muzzle. 

They sat and got wet, still fuming at each other, as the rain pooled on the dungeon floor.  The witch’s long red hair clung to her face, running rivulets of water in her eyes, so she lowered her gaze and did her best to drop her head in her collar.  The puddle was more interesting than the stupid fake angel, anyway—it was even a bit funny, the way Irini looked squashed in her reflection. 

Funny.

Rowena caught the queen’s attention with a particularly emphatic “Mmmmmm!!!” and started gesturing again with her fingers, pointing at her, then flattening them together and motioning toward the floor.

It took multiple attempts and the witch was feeling like she was trapped in an eternal game of charades, when Irini widened Cas’ blue eyes—which promptly turned green, as her form changed and lessened—and shrunk.  Young Dean Winchester wriggled out the loose ropes and chains, Cas’ roomy slacks sliding off, to the wet floor.  He rolled up his soggy sleeves, best as he could and looked at Rowena, through the raindrops.  She made an excited sound, when the magic book appeared in the boy’s hands and her muzzled smile reached her eyes, when he opened it.  But, as the raindrops spattered off an invisible barrier around the pages, not Dean turned away and headed for the storage lockers.  Reciting from the book, his young voice opened lock after lock and all the antique trunks popped open, revealing an array of weaponry and supernatural artifacts.  As Rowena struggled and hummed angrily behind her, Irini reached into one with Dean’s little hand and pulled out the Enochian angel collar and cuffs—then jumped back, as all the lids slammed shut and locked again.  Dean’s narrow shoulders shrugged in Cas’ huge shirt, “Close enough.”

Irini used the spell again to unlock the dungeon, but struggled to budge the heavy door, before it promptly locked again.  Two tries later, Irini stamped Dean’s little wet feet, then searched around for another exit, and finally turned back to the drenched witch, who somehow managed to look amused. 

“I hate you and I don’t trust you, but I need you.  And right now, you need me.”

Through the miracle of waterproof mascara, Rowena rolled her eyes, then stared at the boy, the dress shirt clinging to his wet body—and waited.

“Fine.  You help me, you get the book—same deal as before.”  Irini pointed at the witch irons, “Make a wrong move, and you’ll live the rest of your life down here—not exactly singing in the rain.”

Her red hairdo positively demolished, Rowena sat there dripping a moment, then gave the tinniest nod, her expression unwavering.

Irini spoke the spell and the irons fell free.  Quickly concealing the book, the queen’s small form back-pedaled.  Thrumming with power, the witch’s own magic words not only undid the remaining chains, but overrode Irini’s half-spell—her shackles remained unlocked.   Rowena stood smoothly, casually wiping the wet hair off her face, then snapped her fingers.  The downpour stopped, the puddles disappeared, and they were both instantly dry.  Dean’s freckled face was comical, Irini hanging the little jaw slack. 

A wave from the witch and the queen lifted her arms, as Cas’ shirt shrunk to fit Dean’s small body.  Irini’s little hands full of metal, as she brandished the witch irons, “I mean it—no tricks or I’ll use these.”   Another wave and the witchcatchers slammed to the floor.  The small jaw again hung open.

Her perfect lipstick smiling widely, Rowena said, “Come now, wittle queenie, ye can barely reach m’neck with those.”  She turned and waved again, “And put ye damn wee pants on before ye threaten a girl.”


	43. No Regrets

It felt chillier than usual, as Dean’s bare feet padded across the stone floor of the dungeon.  Granted, a lack of pants and the late hour didn’t help, but the boy also shivered from fear.  He moved about the bunker as silently as possible, checking and rechecking that he wasn’t followed—or in danger of ambush.  Dean knew the risk of being caught was worth what lie in the bunker’s lowest and most ancient room.  In the darkness, Dean felt along the wall for a stored flashlight, then followed its beam to a chink in the brickwork, from which he jimmied out the etched key.  The magic lock opened to reveal— _damn, wrong trunk._   The dragon armor was pretty cool, just not what the boy needed.  Holding the flashlight in his teeth, he checked another trunk, then another, resisting the urge to swing around holy swords or try on amulets with unknown charms, until he found what he’d come for.  Dean winced as he opened his palm along the rusty metal edge of the trunk, then slid his small hand into the large metal gauntlet.  The glove burned hot a few seconds, then it’s weight blended with his arm and Dean clenched the fingers, testing their strength.  He touched his face, feeling his young, soft skin through the metal—Dean’s young, soft body was now equipped with a powerful hand of steel.  _I wonder if it’s as strong as Cas_?  Cas.

With a renewed sense of urgency, Dean turned quickly, dropping the trunk lid.  He startled, the flash light clattered to the floor and its rolling beam flashed across the discarded witchcatcher irons.  Yahtzee.

Dean made his way back to the original crawlspace he had escaped through, sliding along as quietly as he could manage, with both a metal hand and an armful of irons.  He crept along the empty hallway and ducked into his room—with both relief and horror.  The room was empty, save for Cas, lying on the carpet, once again enslaved by the Enochian shackles.  Dean knelt by his angel, stowing the witchcatcher under the bed.  He leaned over to look into Cas’ blank eyes, brushing his hair back with his natural hand.

 “Cas, I’m sorry.  I’m so sorry you’re back in that cold place again.  It’s my fault, I brought them here.  I’m sorry I can’t read Enochian, like Sam—but I’m gonna learn, I swear it.”  Tears fell from Dean’s cheeks onto his angel’s, who continued to stare.  “And C-Cas, I’m real sorry, but I can’t do what you told me to do— _I can’t run._   Not when you’re like this and they got S-Sammy, Cas.” Dean had to choke back his sobs to continue.  “I’m gonna to do the wrong thing for the right reason, Cas, and I’m gonna do it on purpose, because the consequences are worth it.  Cas, you said you didn’t regret anything you’ve done for me and you’d even fall for me again.” Dean leaned his wet cheek against his angel’s.  “Well, If you’d leave Heaven for me, the least I can do is _stay_ for you—no regrets.  I’m gonna get you outta this and if you’re mad after, well, I guess you’ll be mad.”

Looking up sharply, Dean wiped at his teary face.  He turned and reached under his pillow—second Yahtzee—then dove under the bed.  He whispered, “And I won’t trust her,” as the door opened. 

“Oh, Castiel, darling, I’m sure ye’ve missed me, but tears?”

Cas stared at the ceiling. “Well, Irini wants ye where she can see ye, while she sacrifices poor little Moose.”

The witch spoke a spell and from under the bed, Dean watched as Cas floated off the floor.  “Ye should see him; so small, helpless, and—”

Dean rolled out from under the bed, passing under Cas’ shadow, the Colt in his enchanted hand.  The gauntlet levelled the gun at Rowena’s head, “Your next word better be _alive_ or you’re—”

“Yes, yes, yes, I’m _dead_.  Winchesters are nothing, if not predictable.”

Dean cocked the Colt.

“ _Alive_ —yes, Sam is alive—but not for long.  She’s obsessed, Irini is and she won’t wait to have ye both for sacrifice.  Took a _teeny-tiny_ suggestion spell to convince her she needed to keep the angel in view.  I just knew ye’d come back to him, it’s a beautiful love story—”

“Shut up—or I’ll shut you up.”

Rowena sighed, “Do ye think ye the first half-naked boy to threaten me today?”

Dean looked down, _Oh, yeah, get shorts._ A movement made his head snap back up and he again aimed the gun, but the witch only twitched a finger, closing the door tight behind her.  “I’ll be honest, Dean, darling, I’m not particularly interested in helping you win, but I am absolutely invested in seeing _her_ lose.”

“Good.  She’s gonna lose, Cas will be free, we’ll be back to normal, and you’ll get your book.  All you have to do is _everything I say_.”


	44. The Blood of a Hunter

The view from the map table hadn’t changed much—blurry, then blurrier.  While his bound hands, feet, and mouth kept the boy from squirming to see more, it was the tears in Sammy’s eyes that clouded his vision.  Things had changed so fast!  With the witch’s appearance, Sam went from distraught and confused over being assaulted by his brother, to distraught and terrified over being taken by Irini and Rowena.  The boy had been taped, man-handled, and cruelly sliced, above his elbow.  All poor Sammy could do was lie on his side, his cheek resting on Eastern Europe—and cry his heart out.  The boy’s arm ached where Irini had cut him, not a deep cut but tender enough to add fuel to the miserable child’s sobs.  Looking once again like Cas, Irini had smeared the boy’s blood on her newly-changed body, unaware that Sam’s young form no longer contained the blood of a hunter of the supernatural.

Had Sammy been able to speak, he might have told the skinwalker of her folly, but his tongue was stuck fast to the bitter adhesive side of unforgiving duct tape—that’ll leave a mark.  The six-year old lay in tears on the cold, hard table, in pain, frightened—and in dire need of using the bathroom.  The six-year-old was also working his wrists, twisting the tape to stick to itself and gaining some movement.

The sigil and herbs in place, Irini ran her bloodied forearm around the outside of the symbol.

“It won’t work.”

As the comatose angel coasted along beside Rowena and came to rest beside Sam, Irini looked vexed, “Yes, _I know_ I need your magic, witch—but the book says the prep doesn’t require any.”  The ancient queen spat the words. 

Rowena glided (no magic needed, that’s how she walked) over to Irini’s side, leaning on the table and running a nail beside Sam’s wound.  She held up the coagulated blood for her accomplice to see, speaking slowly, “ _This_ is not hunter’s blood—he’s _six_ and hasn’t killed a bloody thing yet, let alone an Alpha.  Ye really are daft, not to figure out why they de-aged themselves.”

Through Cas’ eyes, Irini stared at the blood, then the witch, then the mewling boy.  “Son-of-a-bitch,” Rowena smiled at the queen’s realization.  “Well, then you’ll re-age him.  _Now_.”

The skinwalker held the Alpha book tightly, while Rowena thumbed through the pages for the aging spell.  Stopping on a rune-covered page, the witch scratched her red scalp and intoned, “Uh-oh.”

“What oh? What’ya mean uh-oh?”

“I’m not entirely sure growing Sammy up will restore his supernatural trace—looks like they altered this spell—not that I blame them, recovering their angel would’ve been tricky in diapers.”

“You’re a witch— _say a spell and fix it_.”

“Rude.  I’ll try, but the only way to truly reverse the spell is to re-age them together.  Any sign of Dean-o?”

Irini’s eyes swept around the gloomy bunker, “Not yet, but we both know he’s planning a way to save his brother.  Too dangerous.  Just hurry up and do it on this one.”

"Yes, Y'Highness."  Rowena reached up and grasped chicken bones out of thin air, arranging them around the young hunter.  The witch whispered words and a sigil appeared under Sam, while she added the final wishbone.  With all this attention, Sam lay still, watching Cas’ equally still frame, through red-rimmed eyes.  Behind the duct tape, Sam wriggled his tongue, painfully prying it, bit by bit, off the tape.

But as Rowena recited the spell, the room grew windy.  Sam’s bindings loosened and fell away, he flailed his released limbs, and opened his free jaw wide—letting out a plaintive wail that shook the geometric windows.  Sam looked down at his t-shirt, fascinated a moment by the wriggling material, then, realizing once again his limbs were still somewhat trapped, let loose another long, powerful holler.  How could this be happening?  Sam Winchester had grown up to face all manner of monsters, from Heaven to Hell, only to contend with all the emotions and limitations of being a boy again, and now— _this_.

Dimpled little fists balled up and frantically searched for exits from his oversized t-shirt, while his chubby little legs curled over his soft belly—and six-month-old Sam Winchester’s cries of frustration echoed off the cement walls of The Men of Letters Bunker. 

Then he peed his t-shirt.


	45. A Dean Winchester Alarm

“This is a trick!  You’re up to something, witch!  If you’re thinking I won’t kill the infant—”

“I _honestly_ don’t know what went wrong!”  Rowena’s eyes opened wide, while she clutched at her bosom, dramatically, “I said the spell, with the age runes reversed, as the book instructs…” the witch lifted the squalling, damp infant, holding him at arm’s length from her sequined dress and making a face, “Ye think I’d make a screeching thing like this on _purpose_?  Queenie, ye don’t know me very well.”

“Shut up!  Fix it!” They both had to shout, to be heard over baby Sammy’s cries.

Rowena unceremoniously plopped the infant back down on the hard table, garnering even more desperate screams.  Sam’s tiny face was beat red and soaked with tears—his little mouth barely able to get the air he needed between keening sobs. Rowena sneered at the tiny siren, then desperate, she began to wave her hand to cast a silencing spell over the baby—but stopped.

“I don’t know if I _can_ fix it, but what more— _should_ I?  What we have here is a Dean Winchester alarm—you said it yerself, he’ll save his brother— _this_ ,” she tossed her cherry hair in the infant’s direction, “will get the boy here in a rush—and hopefully, ill-prepared.”

Irini came around to stand over the miserable infant, “When we have them both, you _will_ restore them both fully— _figure it out._ And then,” she moved Cas’ hand over the real angel’s chest, “I get this, you get your book—and the Winchesters will be out of our way, dead.  Plus, I _never_ have to look at you again.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Rowena patted little Sammy’s belly through his big shirt, but when He began to settle, she immediately withdrew her hand, earning another wail of complaint.  “Sounds like he’s yowling _gaun yerself!_ , instead of calling for help.”

“ _Fuck you!  My brother isn’t stupid and what kind of monsters are you to threaten a baby?”_ Sam shouted angrily at the figures above him, but all his toothless mouth produced were screams and cries.  This was beyond frustrating—" _Cas, you’re right there, can’t you hear me?  Ok, you can’t hear me—DEAN!  Where are you?  Is-is she touching me?  Ahhh, that’s nice…I mean, ew, ew!  Get your hands off me!  My legs are wet, I’m cold, and I’m hungry—HELP!_ ”

Sam just kept wailing, though his throat was raw and he felt an overwhelming exhaustion.  His cries were growing weaker, even through his mounting frustration.  Where was Dean?  He knew his captors were lying in wait for his brother, knew Dean was in danger, but still _wanted_ his brother so badly.  Dean would hold him right and make him warm and dry—and Dean would put something in his empty mouth—Dean would make everything better.  Where was Dean?  Little Sammy drew in an extra deep breath and began screeching anew.

Both Irini and Rowena flinched, the witch poking at the baby’s tiny, flushed cheek, “Easy, Sam, ye’ll pop a wee blood vessel.”

“Not like that—” Irini shoved the witch aside with Cas’ more substantial frame and dipped a single knuckle into Sam’s gaping mouth, wiggling it until the baby latched on and sucked--and the map room fell silent at last.

“I thought we wanted him to sound the alarm?”

“The dead Men of Letters heard that howling, I’m sure his brother is on his way by now.”

Rowena watched Sam’s eyes fall to half-mast, as he sucked contentedly on the familiar finger.  She wondered if he realized this wasn’t Cas—no matter, her ears were ringing from Sam’s crying and this was a pleasant reprieve.  The witch wondered one more thing, this time aloud, “How’d ye know how to do that?”

Irini raised Cas’ brow, weighing the possibility that the witch’s question might be sincere.  As the two watched Sam drift off to sleep, the queen removed her saliva-soaked finger and faced her tentative ally, thoughtfully.

“I was a mother, once.”

Rowena looked at the ceiling, “Spare me.  Ye’re gonna _kill him_.  Ye want I should call the PTA, so we can hold a bake sale first?”

_CLICK_

“Both of you, get away from him.”

Two sets of hands raised slowly toward the ceiling, as Irini and Rowena backed up.  The two stared down the barrel of the Colt, gripped tightly in Dean’s full-sized metal hand—worn by Dean Winchester’s full-size, adult body.


	46. Several-Hundred Years Overdue

Castiel laid sprawled; unmoving, unfeeling, yet hearing every word around him.  His grace hadn’t been locked down by the Enochian shackles very long and his awareness still lingered near the boundaries of its cruel cage, when Cas heard him— _Dean_.  Their bond plucked at Cas’ consciousness, but only the young hunter’s words could pry the angel from his immersion in his tortured grace.  He knew prolonged imprisonment in the manacles would eventually force him into that cold, desolate place—but _this_ was even worse.  As the angel heard Dean’s confession, he felt the boy’s hot tears on his vessel’s face and longed to console him.  But the angel could only stare, as the duplicitous witch returned and the most important thing in Cas’ world confronted her—alone.  

Cas laid sprawled across the map table, listening to baby Sam squalling in his vessel’s ear—while his copy and the witch stood by and simply watched.  How could they let something so helpless be in that much distress?  The angel’s concern for the infant made him not only overlook the irony of such a question but also distract himself from his own suffering.  Meanwhile, the collar and cuffs were working their brutal magic and Cas’ awareness was fading, dragged steadily toward his oppressed grace.

Then Castiel heard him— _Dean_.

 

“Get away from the table, away from _both_ of them.”

As Irini and Rowena made their way around the side of the table, the witch smirked, “My, my, Dean, don’t ye look grown up and handsome, in Daddy’s coat.”

“Shut up.  Come closer, _slowly._ ” As Dean beckoned with his free hand, Cas’ trench coat swayed slightly, heavy on his tall frame, revealing his boxers.  “On your knees!”

The witch obeyed, but the ancient queen paused, narrowing Cas’ eyes.  “You really think I’m stupid enough to fall for another crummy illusion?”

Dean rushed forward, slamming his slightly taller frame into the skinwalker and knocking her to the floor.  As Irini shook off the impact and clamored to her knees, she came face-to-face with the gun that ended her Alpha.  The scuffle woke up Sammy, who belted out a new cacophony.

“Yes, I think you’re stupid.”

Rowena simply couldn’t keep the grin off her face, as she gracefully rose to her feet, smoothing her gown.  “Took ye bloody long enou—Ah!”

The skinwalker slashed her ancient dagger along Rowena’s calf and she collapsed to the floor.  Using Cas’ strong arm to lock the witch in a choke hold, she held the knife tip below her delicate, pointy chin.

Gesturing Cas’ not-so delicate chin toward the incessant crying, Irini snarled, “If she dies, your brother stays like _that_.”  At Rowena’s hand twitch, Irini tightened her hold, “Go ahead, witch, see if you can spell quicker than I can cut.”

Again, Dean was instantly on the impostor, kicking the blade from Irini’s grasp and slamming her against the floor.  Tucking the gun in his armpit, Dean employed the gauntlet’s strength to pry Rowena from the queen’s grasp.  The hunter settled his weight onto Cas’ borrowed body, pinning Irini under his knees.  His metal hand grasped the gun, then Dean fired the Colt point blank into the skinwalker's arm.  Irini roared, her ancient body flickering from the injury.

As the baby positively bellowed at the sound of the gun, Dean chanced a glance, worried his brother’s tantrum could force him off the edge of the table.  But Sam had only rolled closer to Cas’ prone frame, desperately seeking comfort.

Back to business.

“The book—give it up.”

In shock from confusion and pain, Irini shook Cas’ head and squeezed her fist tightly, trying to muster the strength to change form and regenerate, but the Colt’s magic bullet repressed her power.  Dean again cocked the Colt and fired a second shot into her wrist. With a strangled cry, the queen’s glowing hand fell open, releasing the book—which Rowena quickly scooped up.  The witch shrunk the volume into her grip, then picked a hex bag from the tan pocket and adult Dean melted back into his ten-year-old form, now dwarfed by Cas’ trench coat. 

“Not _all_ illusions are crummy, queenie,” she sneered down at Irini, who moaned piteously on the floor, clutching her useless arm.  Favoring her own wounded limb, Rowena nonetheless landed a solid kick to the skinwalker’s jaw.  “That’s several-hundred years overdue.”

Dean ignored the exchange and rushed to his brother, placing down the gun and carefully gathering the crying baby to his chest, where Sam settled down, almost instantly.  “Change us back—we had a deal.”

Rowena laughed— _she laughed_. 

The witch continued with her amusement, as Dean approached her, walking awkwardly amid the weighty folds of the tan coat.  “We had a deal.“ The boy’s voice was steady, through Rowena’s chuckles, “a deal I _knew_ you’d break!”

Rowena’s mirth ended abruptly, as Dean pulled the witchcatcher gag from inside Cas’ jacket and slammed it over her mouth.  Protectively clutching Sam, Dean used his magic hand to easily collar the redhead.  Rowena fell to her knees, defeated.

Ten-year-old Dean Winchester stood over the shackled witch and the writhing skinwalker, cradling his infant brother.

“Triple Yahtzee.”


	47. A No-Brainer

“Well, isn’t this…familiar?”

Behind the gag, Rowena couldn’t speak, but her eyes flashed with anger. 

“What’s the matter, witch?  Gag got your tongue?” Dean leaned in close, relishing the witch’s fiery look .  “Aw, don’t be mad, it’s not like there’s no way out of these,” Dean tapped the irons with his metal hand, “All you gotta do to gain back your magic, your power—your freedom is give up the book.”

Rowena’s eyes rolled in their blue-shadowed lids. 

“I’m not done—you’ll give up the book _after_ you reverse the aging spell.  Big Sam and Dean get to hold the Alpha book for safe-keeping and you get your mojo –so you can get back to doing…whatever the Hell it is you do.  Now, that should be a no-brainer for you.”

Rowena glared at the boy holding his cooing baby brother, then down at Irini, now curled around her ruined arm, in a pool of blood.  “Mmm-mmm?”

“What, you want _her_?  She’s dying, harmless, not even a monster anymore.  Besides, you two are trouble—no, she’s not part of the deal.  The spell and the book for your freedom— _that’s_ my offer.  Take it or rot in the dungeon like this.”

Rowena glanced around the room, at the bunker, the children, the angel, and the skinwalker—and huffed out the closest thing to a sigh the gag would allow.

Slowly, the witch nodded, her chin barely moving above the iron collar.  “Mmm,” she intoned, with somber finality.

“Try anything and—”

Rowena made more noise behind the witchcatcher, “That’s right—I’ll kill you.”

Dean produced a rusted skeleton key and opened the witch’s irons, the gauntlet easily holding the heavy shackles.

“The spell, _now_.”.

Not a scrap of Rowena’s earlier amusement remained.  “The table, _now_.”

Dean climbed up, setting his brother down gently beside him, in the sigil.  Dean rubbed Sam’s little head, “Hang in there, buddy.” As Rowena produced more bones and chanted the reverse spell, Dean kept his eyes on his imprisoned angel, with hi blank stare.  “Soon, Cas, I promise.” 

As the room swirled and thrummed, Dean had a sudden thought.  But next he knew, his long bow legs were sliding off the end of the map table and Dean stood on his bare feet, his six-one frame looking at a very adult—and very pantless—Sam, his naked butt sitting on Australia.  “Here, Sammy,” Dean slipped off Cas’ coat and offered it to his blushing brother, who donned it quickly, “Call me Sam for a while, will ya, Dean?” 

Rowena stood with her arms folded, “At least ye were cute before, now ye’re just—”

Dean swept the Colt up off the table and fired at Rowena’s head.


	48. I'm Sorry, Cas--I'm Sorry, Sam

In all her untold years, Rowena thought she had seen it all.  She’d witnessed the industrial revolution, plagues, genocide, and world-wide conflict.  Through the ages, Rowena had persevered, by hook or by crook and though she’d lost some battles, her war for personal power raged on.  Rowena Macleod was a survivor.

The Colt bullet seemed to travel in slow motion, baring down on the witch.  But when it drew close, it whizzed right through her red, bouncy hair and landed in Irini’s forehead.  The Cas copy flickered in place, one arm still reaching toward the Alpha book, then crumbled to the floor.   Rowena stared for a split second, before uttering the Latin that froze Dean in his tracks. 

As Rowena stepped toward his brother, Sam stood in between them, only to be flung back on the table beside Cas and pinned with a flick of the witch’s wrist.  A slender, manicured finger reached out and shifted the barrel of the Colt aside, as Rowena enunciated, "Don’t you point that thing at _me_ , boy.”

 

Dean stared forward, paralyzed, as the witch threw aside his brother.  Was this what Cas felt like, powerless inside his own body?  _I’m sorry, Cas_.  _I’m sorry, Sam_.  _I failed_.   _I suck.  This sucks_.  Even killing the skinwalker had sucked—putting a bullet in what looked like Cas’ head had been traumatic.  Dean couldn’t tell if it was his imagination, but he could have sworn he felt tears sting his eyes.  _What the Hell_?  He wasn’t ten anymore and this just wasn’t the way he wanted to go—immobile and crying, in his boxers.  The witch had bested him, despite his clever planning.  Once the de-aging spell was reversed, he’d thought he’d had the upper hand, but now he was frozen, Cas was frozen, Sam was froz—no, wait—Sam was _pinned._

 

Rowena looked over her shoulder at the dead skinwalker, “But thank ye so much for _that._ ”  Picking up the Alpha book, Rowena ran a hand over its cover, reverently, “And for _this_.”

Opening the book, Rowena motioned clockwise and a new sigil appeared around Sam, scattered with herbs.  “Rowena, you can’t do this!” The hunter struggled to move, only managing to wrench his head side-to-side.

“Hush, Sam, yer brother’s just killed an Alpha skinwalker, so the bullet ye put in Theodora means yer it.”  She began to recite the spell from the book, the room darkening under its power.

Through watery eyes, Dean watched the chanting witch step away from his brother and bend to pick up Irini’s knife.  _Oh, please, no...please..._. Rowena was suddenly engulfed blinding light and Dean's eyes stung once again as Castiel's full-on angel display filled the room.  The shadows of the angel’s wingspan wrapped around the walls, surrounding the tiny redhead, as the angel’s glowing eyes bore down on her. 

“Release them.”  Cas didn’t raise his voice and yet it echoed around the bunker, seeming to come from every corner.  The terrified witch did as she was told, but before the freed Winchesters could react, she made a final desperate lunge for the book.  Still radiating light, Cas’ hand slammed onto the Alpha book and it crumbled to dust under his might.

“He can’t!” Rowena shrieked, beside herself.

“He did.” Dean stepped forward and cocked the gun.

As Rowena found herself once again at the business end of the Colt, she raised her hands in mock surrender, then spread her arms wide.  Crying out in Latin, the witch disappeared with a thunder clap in a glistening flash of swirling red mist.

As the light around Cas’ vessel subsided and the last traces of Rowena’s exit settled, Dean smiled at Cas and Sam.

“ _That_ was definitely not crummy.”


	49. It was you, Dean

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this is the the end--I'd call it the exciting conclusion, but the excitement already happened.  
> So, enjoy the denouement; the bittersweet, the chuckles, the feels.
> 
> And THANK YOU, readers, for coming along for the ride--told you it was quite a case...a curious case.
> 
> By all means, if you enjoyed the story--or didn't--PLEASE comment, I love feedback and will answer questions and comments. Here we go...

“You’ve really gotta study some Enochian, Dean.  If Rowena had used that freeze spell on me, Cas would still be in those shackles.”

“And you’d be her sacrifice.  You know, Sam, I’ve actually lost count of how many times that witch has tried to screw us over.”

“Let’s just say it’s enough times,” Cas wrapped his arm around Dean, “That’s not to say that chancing her treachery this time wasn’t the means to an end.”

Dean showed off his dimples, beaming a smile at Cas.  “Does this mean you’re not mad, angel?”

“Furious.” Though his voice was stern, Cas smiled right back.

Sam reached out and inspected the magic gauntlet, turning Dean’s wrist over to read aloud the inscription on its cuff.  The glove heated and glowed again and Dean yanked the loosened metal from his hot hand, dropping it to the floor with a _clang_.  “You might want to brush up on your Akkadian, too.”

“Man, Sammy, I wanted to keep that a while more—see what it could do.”

“What it could do is get stuck on you, forever.  The Men of Letters removed the worst of its curse a long time ago, but it still responds to the wearer’s _will_.”

Looking down at the metal hand, Dean mumbled, “I guess I’ve got plenty of that.”

Sam cleared his throat and folded his arms, which were longer than the cuffs of the trench coat.  “Well, I don’t know about you two, but this case has put more than a few things in perspective.”

“Sam?” The genuine, original Cas brow rose, expectantly.

“Each of us rejected dangerous ideas when we didn’t have any others.  But check it out, Dean, when we were the most lost and confused and hopeless—when we were most _upset_ , we came up with some of our best—”

“And _worst_ ideas,” Cas just had to interject.  “I think, Sam, what you’re saying is that under duress, both you and your brother will always seek a solution.  While your results may vary, it cannot be said that a Winchester doesn’t work well under pressure—however—when either of you acts on emotion, _without consult_ , well, we end up with Happy Meals on the table and deceitful witches in our home.  The lesson?  We work better together.”

“Hear, hear.”

“I’ll _hear, hear_ you, Sam.  Everything worked out, didn’t it?”

“Once we worked _together_.”

“Ok, _Mr._ _After School Special,_ why don’t you shower and get some drawers on.  And while you’re at it, throw Cas’ coat in the wash—no red socks or it’ll match your Barbie shoes.” Dean exaggerated a body shudder, “It’s got skinwalker all over it.” Dean grimaced at Irini’s corpse, still looking too much like Cas for the hunter’s comfort.

Cas crouched, touching the cold, familiar body on the floor, “Please remove my angel blade from the pocket, Sam, it’ll make a racket in the dryer.”  And with a flap, both Castiels disappeared.

“Beer?”

“Beer.”

Dressed in a clean t-shirt and lounge pants, Sam rested his clean feet on the kitchen table, as both brothers took long pulls off their amber bottles.

“Ahh, to be a grown-up again.”

Sam swept his damp hair back, “Really, Dean?  I didn’t find it all that bad.”

Chuckling, Dean wiped his mouth, “You’re joking, right?  Getting told what to do, what to say and being on an emotional Tilt-a-Whirl— _crying over french fries_ —Sam, that’s your idea of fun?”

“I didn’t say it was all fun, just not all that bad,” he took another drink, “And Cas was great.”

“oh, sure, Sam—he didn’t hand _you_ your ass, did he?”

“You asked for that.  Ordered right off the kid’s menu.  Filled out a request form—”

“Shut up, Bitch.”

“Jerk.”

With an echo of flapping wings, Cas returned, his clothes clean and wrinkle-free—he was even wearing shoes.

“Hello, Dean.  Sam.  I’ve just finished re-warding the bunker.  Irini’s body has been burned—I thought it unwise to simply bury evidence of my doppelganger.  The authorities have been alerted to both the bodies at the chicken plant.  And they found your elderly friend.”  The brothers lowered their heads, in respect, “Roz didn’t deserve her death, but she lived a full life and its being celebrated.  The township is re-naming the park after her.”

Sam finished his beer, “Amen to that.”  The tall hunter stood and clapped a large hand on Cas’ shoulder, “Thanks, Cas—for everything.”

“You’re wel— _oof_!”

Though surprised, Cas let Sam wrap him easily into his long arms, and the angel hugged the hunter back.

“You’re welcome, Sam.  And thank _you_ , for releasing me— _twice_.”

Sam drew back with a smirk, “Are you kidding?  We gotta finish our Harry Potter film fest—Dean just makes fun of it.”

“ _You’ll get us all killed, or worse—expelled_!”  Dean’s Hermione impression left much to be desired, though he cracked himself right up.

Ignoring his brother’s snark, Sam bent and planted an uncharacteristic peck in Dean’s spiky hair.  “Thank you for everything too, Dean.  My big brother always did have my back.

“Yeah, yeah…check Cas’ coat, we don’t need it to shrink,” he called after Sam.

Cas sat at the table, beside Dean and laced their fingers together.  They sat quietly, among the stainless-steel fixtures, as Dean finished his beer.

“You know, you owe your brother your life today—if he hadn’t freed me…”

“Me and Sam have saved each other’s lives more times than Carter’s got little liver pills.”

“I don’t understand that reference, but I know you’ve both risked your lives for each other’s many times.  It’s what a Winchester does, is it not?   Put his life on the line for those he loves?”

“Something like that.”

“Exactly that, Dean.”

Cas placed Dean’s empty bottle on the table, wrapping his empty hand in his own. 

“It’s who you choose to be, Dean.  You said it yourself— _you do it on purpose, because the consequences are worth it_ — _no regrets_.”

Dean looked into Cas’ blue eyes and saw no condemnation there.  “Cas, you heard me.”

“I did.  And I wanted to act—to stop you, to help you—to hold you, Dean.  I’m not sure I’ve ever seen such a brave little hunter.  Well, I actually couldn’t see, but I heard every word—and felt your tears— _oof!_ ”

Cas sat at the table with his arms full of Dean Winchester, rocking his lover slowly.  The hunter stifled a sniff against the angel’s chest.  “I wasn’t brave, I was terrified.”

“That’s exactly why what you did was brave.”

“Rowena still turned on me, Cas, just like you warned me.”

“And you were ready for it.  Well, most of it.  You didn’t do half bad in the first few quarters, then Team Free Will took the field.”

Dean kept his head on Cas’ chest, but raised his eyes, “Really, Cas?  Football references?”

“You got them.”

They both chuckled in each other’s arms, relishing the feel of one another.  Dean remembered being small enough for the angel to carry and laughed again, to himself—snuggling closer, he almost felt small again.  And then he remembered something else.

“Cas?  What I did—are you still mad?  Or disappointed?”

Kissing the hunter on his temple, Cas dipped his chin to meet his eyes.

“No, Dean, I’m neither.  As I’ve told you before, I’m very proud of you.” Cas lifted Dean’s hand and pressed his lips on the palm.  “You know, Sam opened my shackles—but it was you, Dean, that woke me up.  Your prayers, your call for help—your voice—they all kept me from falling into the hollow.  I don’t think I could have resisted for anyone but you.”

“Thanks,” Dean lifted his chin and kissed his angel, slow and steady, humming as Cas fervently kissed him back.

 Pulling away, Dean smiled, “I love you, too.”  The hunter sighed and placed his head again on Cas’ chest.

“So, I guess I weaseled my way out of a spanking this time?”

A softer kiss landed on Dean’s crown.

 

“Not a chance, kiddo.”


End file.
